Quarterly Scientific-Research Goljaam

Persian silk rugs are the most intricate, and often most valuable ones among all hand-knotted carpets. Silk is luxurious, lightweight and soft. Additionally fineness of silk carpet is amazing. Then it is very important to improve its quality and useful life time. During its usage, a typical high quality Persian or Oriental silk rug is exposed to many water-based stains. Although there are now a number of luxury silk carpets on the market, oddly enough they stain easily with the simplest of liquids, i.e. water. That can be bad news for investing goods such as carpets made of this expensive fiber. Getting a water stain out of silk can be tricky, but it is possible. Moisture absorbency of natural silk yarns leads to easy staining of these products by these kinds of pollutants such as tea, coffee, juice, etc. as well as their decreased life time. Textile substrates with super hydrophobic surfaces have attracted much attention for industrial applications and it is a very important resource of advanced materials and new technologies; while this is not applied in hand-woven carpet industry. In this paper hydrophobicity of silk carpets with good compatibility has been improved by treatment with Nano-poly di-methyl silicone. The silk substrates were modified with a silicone compound to achieve low surface energy. Dyed silk by metal complex 2:1 acid dyes as pile yarns and cotton warp yarns applied to weaving silk carpets, and kilims. Treatment by nano-poly di-methyl silicone has been done in low temperature. Evaluation of treatments has been done according to AATCC Test Methods. Durability and stability of surface-treatment of silk carpets were measured too. After washing of carpet and dye-injection on the surface of carpet, contact angle and wet-out time measurements on the silk carpets still show much improved hydrophobic properties. The resultant silk carpet exhibits superior water repellent properties.

Carpet design and decoration are the fundamental elements for producing carpet and they are important factors determining material and artistic values of a carpet. The access and use of innovative and demand driven designs are the crucial issues that carpet weavers face with, affecting their production, productivity and income. The purpose of this paper is to explore the supply sources and methods of access to silk carpet designs by rural weavers. The data were collected using a case study methodology through focus groups, semi-structured interviews, participatory mapping, document analysis and observation. The study was conducted with 90 rural silk carpet weaving households in 23 villages of the Zanjan Township and market actors in the cities of Zanjan, Qom and Kashan. Rural weavers produced carpet and received designs through two production approaches: a) self-employed production and b) contractual employed production for external entrepreneurs or dealers. In the self-employed approach, rural weavers got accessed to designs through two mediating chains including local and urban dealers. Access to designs in this approach was mostly indirect, in that rural weavers demanded and received designs from local dealers who in turn received the designs through the silk carpet market in the Zanjan City. In the contractual employed approach, rural weavers accessed their required designs through three mediating chains, comprising local dealers, urban dealers and urban entrepreneurs. The most frequent contact of rural weavers was related to their direct visit to their entrepreneurs or employers who were not carpet designers. In both production approaches, the provincial rural carpet :::::union::::: acted as a dealer rather than a community based organization supporting rural weavers, so it did not reflect the weavers’ interest.

As valuable historical documents, works of art can dramatically contribute to historical research. History of carpet-weaving is vague in some periods and should be clarified by the help of the surviving documents and manuscripts. Ibn Hessam's Khavaran-nameh contains illustrations depicting carpets. The present paper seeks to analyze and extract information from the carpet illustrations in Khavaran-nameh. The focus is on the identity quality and diversity of designs over time. The significance of this study comes from the fact that historiography of carpet-weaving, as the most important Iranian art/craft, and resolving its historical ambiguities is central to an integrated national identity. The findings suggest that Khavaran-nameh is important in the study of Turkaman carpets because it was illustrated shortly after being composed. Although the details of its illustrations are not of high quality, they show a broader variety in comparison with other similar works.