The oldest surviving carpet was found in the frozen tomb of a Scythian prince. The carpet was completely frozen in a block of ice and has survived intact. The oldest known pile carpet in the world is wool, dates from the 5th-4th century BC and is called the "Pazirik Carpet" because it was found in the Pazirik Valley.

It was found by Sergei Ivanovich Rudenko during the excavation of a Siberian mound in 1949. It is said to have originated from Turkic groups living in Siberia, the Scythians or the Persian Achaemenids.