Herat

Before sunrise each autumn, women in Herat’s fields bend to pick crocus flowers by hand. The three red threads inside each blossom — dried and sorted — become Afghanistan’s most valuable export by weight: saffron.

A hand-knotted Afghan carpet can take months to weave and travel thousands of miles before it reaches a buyer who has no idea how it was made, graded, or named along the way. Here’s the full story — from the loom to the global market.