Quarterly Scientific-Research Goljaam

Iranian artists and craftsmen have been interested in decorations for a long time. Geometric, animal and plant motifs and sometimes a line in various combinations adorned all or part of their handmade works. The art of carpet weaving hasn't been excluded. Carpet designers have created beautiful and sometimes unique designs by the influence of religion, politics, culture and other common arts during the course of history and the master weavers have also recorded it.

One of the most important applied designs in carpet-weaving art which became universal by the arrival of the Islam is the design of prayer rugs, the carpets with small dimensions that were designed and woven to perform the most important religious practices; saying prayers. Probably, performing congregational religious ceremonies including Congregational Prayers, Friday or Eid (Islamic Feast) prayers were enough to create a unique design in the art of carpet-weaving in Islamic Iran with the title of a Niche Prayer Rug (saff).

In these kinds of carpets, a row of altar arches is woven on the length or width of the carpet to determine the position of a single person who says prayers. This attractive design that can be a symbol of unity of the Islamic nations, has been gradually adapted by Muslims of other Islamic countries such as Turkey, India and Eastern Turkestan. Considering the culture and common decorative motifs of that area, the native weavers produced different and sometimes beautiful carpets that are rooted in original Iranian art.

This descriptive-analytic investigation is to study the history of the Niche Prayer Rug (saff) design in Iranian carpet-weaving art. Regarding the library based state of the research, it’s tried to introduce the reason of weaving these kinds of carpets and also the areas that produced them.

Mahdishahr (Sangsar) located in Semnan Province is the location of residence of Sangsari tribes, which are among the original Iranian tribes. The carpet weaving in the Sangsar area is very old due to the nomadic life, but the urban carpet weaving is probably about one hundred-years-old. Sangsar Rug designs have been influenced by the virtu, tastes, social and climatic circumstances of the inhabitants of the region over the past years, and indigenous and cultural concepts have played a substantial role in the evolution and diversity of the design. Despite having native raw materials and self-painted wools, one of the features of Sangsar Rug is the use of the design and pattern of carpets in reputable areas of carpet weaving that are seen in fewer clans or similar tribes. Sangsari weavers wove various designs such as four-season, lachak (a typical scarf), and bergamot, subsoil, bush, carpet tableau, etc. based on the plan or by modelling (taking patterns) of urban carpets back (tail) of other areas. One of the most diverse designs, Introducing the characteristics and identification of the types of woven altar carpets, available and available in the region in the last one hundred years.which is woven in different types and dimensions in this area, is the mehrab design.

The main question of the research is how the mehrab design is woven in Sangsar region and which geographical areas do the origin of the designs woven in Sangsar mehrab carpets go back to? This research has been carried out in a descriptive-analytical way and in the form of a field and document study, and the purpose of its implementation, in addition to getting to know the method of carpet weaving in the Sangsar region, is to introduce the characteristics and identify the types of woven altar carpets that are available and available in the region. It is the last hundred years.
The findings of the research show that local weavers have been able to design and implement a variety of altar designs such as vase-pillar altar, tree-pillar, tree-animal, vase-cedar, vase-bergamot and two-sided altar-vase with local features according to order or by copying the carpets from the areas such as Qom, Isfahan and Kashan, Hamedan, Ravar Kerman and modeling Sangsar ornaments.