This rug got its conventional name because of its central animal motif. The rug was found in 1890 in one of the churches of central Italy. This unique specimen dates back to the 15th-6th centuries. The size of the rug is 164 x 91 cm and it is displayed at the Islamic Art Museum in Berlin.
Similar examples can be found in church paintings of the European Renaissance. You can also find a similar rug in Siena, on a mural by Domenico di Bartolo painted in 1440. This fact allows experts to assume that this animal-motif rug was widespread and not a rare exception.
The rug is distinguished by its archaic animal decoration, which, according to some experts, depicts the fight between the mythical dragon and the phoenix (earth and sky). Dickran Kouymjian, Professor of Armenian Studies, Emeritus, California State University, Fresno & Paris, has a different view about the rug. Since the rug does not have any inscriptions and precise dating, Kouymjian addresses the stylistic analysis and comparisons of the symbols. Thus, he goes back to Chinese art from the earliest dynasties where the dragon and the phoenix are found. In China both these creatures were considered benevolent. In time, the dragon became the symbol of the emperor and the phoenix, the empress. Up to the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Chinese did not think of them in conflict. Furthermore, except for a single bronze only recently published, there are no examples of the two animals together on the same object in Chinese, Mongol, or Islamic art until after the fourteenth century.
The earliest representation of the dragon and phoenix together is in a headpiece for the feast of the Transfiguration in the famous Armenian Lectionary of Het‘um II dated 1286. Dragon and phoenix together, along with some other Chinese mythological creatures, are found twice in the Lectionary. The crown prince Het‘um was honoring his father and mother. The dragon and phoenix together represent the king and queen of the realm ruling over an Armenia at peace as depicted in portrait miniatures of Gospels of 1262 and 1272. Furthermore, these animals and their symbolic interpretation were clearly and perfectly understood among the artists of the court, confirmed by such details as the number of claws of the dragons, since the dragons must have had different numbers of claws, depending on its affiliation.
Kouymjian believes that the Armenian royal court acquired Chinese objects, and thus the knowledge about Chinese mythology, through the exchange of gifts between Armenian aristocracy and the Great Khan in Qaraqorum and by trade on the silk route which passed through Greater Armenia and Cilicia.
Kouymjian concludes, that no rug weaving tradition other than the Armenian can bring along with its claim of proprietorship: 1) a long and well-documented history of weaving practice; 2) the very precocious (really unique) earliest instance of the joining together of these Chinese animals on a single object; and 3) a demonstrable understanding of what the dragon and phoenix represented to the Chinese and Mongols.
Source:
Dickran Kouymjian, The Berlin Dragon-Phoenix Carpet and its Probable Armenian Origin
Volkmar Ganzhorn, The Christian Oriental Carpet