When RUG INSIDER first started publication in 1996 the rug market was nearing the end run of a great class of traditionally styled rugs that replicated the look of those familiar Persian designs of Kashan, Isfahan, Kerman, and especially Tabriz to name but a few. Handmade in the Peoples Republic of China the so-called Sino-Persian rugs rose to prominence in the late 1980s as an alternative to their Persian cousins, which were banned by a United States embargo from 1987 to 2000.