Quarterly Scientific-Research Goljaam

The common element in the Persian Shiri carpets is lion, sometimes accompanied with Sword and full or half sun. Sword is a symbol of power & war and Sun is a symbol of Imam Ali (PBUH). In addition to lion and sun, pictures of lion-cow-attack, with their ancient history in Iranian art, are represented in Fars’ Shiri carpets in other methods. For this reason, calendar, changes of seasons & Star Circuits are factors affecting on symbolism of each period.

Solar gods & goddesses or Water gods & goddesses have symbols in sky & earth, representing their divine form, in relation with concepts like movements of stars and planets (sun, Venus, Mercury, and Mars) and animals like lion and cow. The combination of lion and cow is specifically for the district of Fars (the third land); so is the combination of lion and sun for other districts of Iran (the fourth land). The combination of lion and sun as the representation of the forth land is another interpretation of the combination of lion and cow as the representation of the third land, according to astronomical and sidereal concordances.

This descriptive-analytic paper tries to find points of similarity between gods & goddesses in ancient civilizations, and illustrates & analyzes the roots of their shapes for finding common forms between Anahita, Mehr, Tir & Bahram through document and library research. The reason is that these gods & goddesses have retrospective effects and the heavenly representation of their duties were existent in celebrations of creation.

Amoo’oghli brothers are the founders and revivals of contemporary carpet weaving in Mashhad. Their carpets are very famous because of their unique and outstanding characteristics. This study introduces, examines and categorizes patterns and designs used in the field’s and on the borders’ of their various carpets, in addition to their most concurrent patterns, the mostly used structure in design, harmony of carpet parts, motifs etc. and also Amoo’oghli and Amoo’oghli 110 brands.

Designs of Amoo’oghli carpets are either adoptive, like Sheikh Saffi, Chelsi etc. or innovative, like Kouzeh Kannani. Both of them have been affected by original North-Eastern Iranian design and Harrat style.

This article also studies very precious carpets with high densities and delicate complicated motifs in amongst their products, at the same time with common carpets with large and even geometrical motifs, simpler designs and lower densities.

It also introduces some of designers who cooperated with Amoo’oghli brothers and played important roles in their fame, Taher Behzad Zadeh or San’atnegar, so to speak.

Regardless of its architectural features, garden is one of the key concepts in Persian art history from the ancient times to the Islamic period with a significant role in different arts, especially in architecture, from conceptual, formal and also contents-based points of view.

The main aim of this research is a comprehensive study of garden concept and its significant role in Safavid art and culture.

This paper is to question the status of garden in the role of epistemology and thought concept in forming many of movements and artworks of Safavid period, esp. in the art of carpet weaving.  

This Historic, descriptive and analytic research with its library-based data collection method practices Michael Foucault’s discourse theory and ideas of Laclau and Mouffé to analyze the gathered information.

Results show that regarding its conceptual, determinant and regulative characteristics, the concept of garden is an epistemological discourse in forming the configuration, concept and context of Safavid art. Accordingly, garden is a dominant discourse in art and rugs of Safavid period.

Iranian hand-woven carpet is a national art rooted in the ancient civilization, culture and history of Iran. In history, carpet designs have been transformed, due to changes in society and at times subjects, designs, shapes and combinations are brought in or taken out. For example, during Qajar Era, new social transformations resulted in the invention of new motifs in rugs in contrast to former abstract motifs; with simulated or imagined images of kings.

 This paper studies pictorial rugs of Qajar period with a sociological approach and with Laclau and Mouffe discourse analysis beside the semantic structure of Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic axes of Ferdinand de Saussure. It aims at finding the answer for the question of what discourse signifiers were affecting those rugs and the reason behind the popularity of the images of mythical ancient Iranian kings at that era.

Descriptive-analytic approach is used in this study and library documents were applied as data source. Ten samples of pictorial rugs, with Iranian kings as their subject, were selected randomly as the sample. The findings of this study reveal that since a willingness to find an Iranian identity right against other nations was to emerge at that era, people who travelled to Europe tended to find the reason behind Iran’s underdevelopment. As a result, they introduced mythical kings and the pre-Islamic era as the ideal kings and the golden age, which was being reflected in the rugs of that period. The structure of motifs’ companionship seem to be replaced by images of kings in order to emphasize the hegemony of their divinely spiritual legitimacy and political power in the world.

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.

Paisley (buta-Jeghe) a motif which has been applied in Iran’s carpets in Islamic era. The history of using this pattern in Iran’s art  has always been a controversial issue. Some think of it as a motif belonging to Pre-Islamic decorations such as cedar or pattern of animal wings of the Sassanid era. Meanwhile, others see it as a motif which was imported by one of the cashmere shawls from India into the Iranian art. Paisley pattern is highly considered among Iranian weavers. It has decorated the carpets and rugs of many Iranian cities. It has also been used in hand-woven products of   Fars nomads more than carpets of Qashqai and Bolvardi nomads.   It has also been welcomed and spread among carpets of other regions like Bijar, Hamadan, Kurds of West of Iran and also hand weavings of Turkaman Nomads. Regarding paisley motif, More than 70 categories had been reported while only about twenty groups had been cited with precise names among different references. Due to the diversity and extent of its types in each group, one can find tens of its various samples. The usage of Paisley motif has not only been for decoration, but also as a foundation for shaping some carpet designs.

Since some part of cultural entrepreneurship pays attention to entrepreneurship in arena of art and handicrafts, and handmade carpet is one of the oldest and most important handicrafts in Iran, paying attention to carpet is really prominent. Paying attention to originality of this native art, production and exportation of handmade carpets for having a share in competitive market and development of entrepreneurship in industry of handicrafts are the reasons for the importance of this issue. In recent decades, this market has faced some obstacles that has caused some problems. To solve these problems, innovation is one of the fundamental solutions. Therefore, this study has tried to find a solution to get rid of these obstacles in the art and evaluate the solutions in this research. This research which is based on descriptive and survey analysis is willing to find the obstacles on the way of innovation in Isfahan handmade carpets and to present a method or way for innovation in Isfahan handmade carpet. The statistical society encompasses designers, producers and carpet merchants, with 211 samples randomly chosen.  Its results show that the obstacles on the way of innovation in handmade carpets go into the five major categories of economics, marketing, culture, management and technology, for all of which 30 sub-branches has been identified.  In addition, the analysis of the achieved results show that each of these factors has different levels of effect on obtruding innovation in Isfahan hand-woven carpets. To conclude, some suggestion are given to get rid of these problems.

Today, much research is conducted on the use of new methods of dyeing textiles, all of which are trying to select an appropriate method of reducing the usage of energy and chemicals in a way to produce cost-effective products with an acceptable uniformity. One of these methods is the use of ultrasonic waves. Since the dyestuff is extremely limited by the plant cell membrane, extraction methods such as ultrasonic ones can better improve the mechanism of extracting natural dyes and dyestuff out of cell membranes and also improve the transfer of dyestuff onto fibers’ dyeing process in order to  assist in conservation of natural resources,

The aim of this study is to use ultrasonic waves in the extraction of dyestuff of walnut shell and to dye wool fibers with the extract. Favorable results are obtained compared to conventional screw. By calculating the absorption efficiency with conventional ultrasound method, it was concluded that the use of ultrasonic waves can increase the concentration of the dye in solution more than the conventional method and by increasing the concentration of the dye in both methods, this factor is increased. According to the findings, it is concluded that ultrasonic extraction method is more efficient than the usual one. To investigate the effects of ultrasonic method in the dyeing process, the productivity of ultrasonic method in dyeing was calculated in relation to conventional method in two modes of (UU) and (UC). The productivity of (UU) in relation to (UC) was % 13/77.   Various mechanical aspects are included to achieve the positive effect of the use of ultrasonic waves in dyeing process such as degassing of fiber, stimulation of dyeing solution, rapid spread of dyestuff on fiber and breaking the gathering of dyeing molecules. These cause a higher influence of the dyestuff in the fibers and a sheer deep dye. Measurement of stabled samples results show that the stability of the samples in both ultrasonic and conventional methods, has been fair to good. The results of the SEM analysis clearly presents this conclusion. Creating a kind of surface erosion and degradation scales, which led to greater influence and power of color dye into the fiber, increases the effects of cavitation. They are considered to be seen in the SEM images.

Carpet is one of the Iranian arts that is shaped in direct interaction with designers and weavers and therefore is a visual expression of their beliefs and ideas. This statement of beliefs, originates from the artist’s mentality influenced by culture, customs and religious teachings of society which is then traced on the vertexes of the carpet in different arrays and in the form of various designs. For this reason, various issues have been incorporated in carpet with a symbolic expression and each imply a cultural and religious concept. In the mist of this, numbers have a deep root in the culture of this country and was divided into two types: quantitative and qualitative. Qualitative aspect, or in other words, the symbolic and meaningful dimension of numbers has long been in consideration and the application of numbers in the arts of this country can be considered as a sign of the grand position of the symbolic aspect of numbers in different eras.

This article reviews the place and symbolic use of numbers in carpet with analytical method and library data collection. The results show that the numbers one, three, four, five, six, seven and eight have been symbolically used in different carpet designs. This application implies that the organization of images and designs has been based on the symbolic meanings of these numbers. Furthermore, it can be been seen that some carpet patterns and designs have been named based on their numerical format, thus strengthening the role of numbers in carpet and conveying the symbolic meaning they possess. These patterns, which are influenced by the cultural and religious teachings of the society, have been employed by designers and weavers and have been the source of inspiration for their designs.

The purpose of this article is sociological explanation of Iran's contemporary carpet designing system to recognizing of the evolution or the stability in its carpet designing schools. For this aim, first we selected and compared 20 sample carpets among the woven carpets of Tabriz and Esfahan in the past 10 years with the same number of Tabriz and Esfahan carpets that are woven at 40 to 60 years ago. With these compare probabilistic caused changes in design, pattern and color of this carpets had shown. The results show that deflection from traditional designing bases in Tabriz contemporary carpets is visible and fast. Versus changing of these bases in Esfahan carpets is according to rules and course frame of Iranian traditional design and is continuing its natural proses.

 This article is theoretically related to the field of sociology and emphasizes on Anthony Giddens's structuration theory. In Accordance with structuration theory, had studied reasons of the evolution or the stability in identical component of Esfahan and Tabriz carpets. The findings of the study indicate that, any change in the rules and resources of proceeding at each of the schools of Iranian carpet design, will caused changes in its entirety system. Therefore stability of the rules and resources of action in Esfahan causes the persistence of Iranian classical design school in this city, inverse the fluidity of the rules and resources in Tabriz causes consecutive changes in School of Tabriz carpet designing.

 A descriptive analytic approach and field study-library based data collection were the research methods used in the present study

The French elements and motifs have been entered to Iran art through building moldings. Meanwhile, importing postcards and chocolate boxes having European stencils ,have had important role at stencils of carpet .At the period of Gublan in Kerman province ,by the request of America for using French Golfrang and Gublan,the structure and elements of Kerman carpet was influenced by Aubusson and Savonery  carpets.

In this article , by study these two types of carpet, we try to show the relationship between French carpet stencils and the  Gublan period carpet in Kerman and by comparing the resemblances and differences to show: How much the Kerman carpet has been influenced by the French carpet, whether the designers copied the designs or incorporated them.

To achieve a precise and accurate result,56 samples of Gublan Period carpet in Kerman were collected by field study .Also 70 samples of French carpets were photographed by library method .By comparing these designs through descriptive, analytical  and comparative methods ,their different and common aspects were surveyed and specified that no copy has been done and at the Gublan period ,the Kerman designers have been influenced by French carpet design. In some cases adaptations used ,have resulted to innovation of  new designs.

With regard to the similarities between the composition and structure of these two types of carpet, in spite of French carpet ,the colour used in Kerman carpets are bright and opaque.

Though the basis of French carpet design has been originated from the  East ,but in comparison to Kerman carpet, less porportions have been observed.

The present article is a kind of field and historical research accomplished based on available historical and imagery sources aiming at clarifying the changes that have been taken place in patterns and designs of mentally-woven mazlagan carpet and its patterns and motifs categorization in recent century. In addition to the historical investigation based on written and unwritten sources, a field study was also conducted in Mazlagan village, to find out old carpets, take their picture and interview with the old and famous people in Saveh and Tehran market and finally by comparing the information and pictures, the changes in patterns and designs of mentally-woven Mazlagan carpet were determined. Then, based on the obtained results, an attempt has been made to categorize and classify patterns and designs of this mentally-woven carpet. The results indicated that the patterns and designs of Mazlagan carpet can be classified with regard to two perspectivess which are forms and motif models; visual and physical nature of motifs  as well as application of these motifs in the body or in the borders into four categories of plants and forms or models. The plant category can be divided into single flowers, leaf, leaf and flower band, three leaf flowers and incoming flowers and the last category to three subcategories of multi-angles including three, four, five, six and ehight angles and  forms consisting of panes and arrows ,toothed and elbows. Borders in Mazlagan carpet can be divided into four types of two dostkomi and first until third type Harati.

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.

Iranian hand-woven carpets as a strategic commodity in the field of non-oil exports is important, The identification of barriers to the industry and provide optimal solutions to facilitate its exports is important. This study aims to identify barriers to the export of Iranian handmade carpets using holistic marketing approach and offering its facilitators in the form of a concept model. In the first study, using a qualitative approach (content analysis), 57 code as barriers to the export of Iranian carpet extraction and according to semantic relationships were categorized into 6 classes and To overcome these obstacles, as facilitator for each class a concept proposed. In the second stage, using quantitative approach (interpretative structural modeling), the conceptual model was developed triggers for Iranian hand-woven carpets. Finally, the use of leverage-dependent matrix and conceptual model of research proposals to facilitate export of Iranian carpet was presented.

Handmade carpet as biggest and most original handicraft in Iran, in terms of employment speially in rural areas as well as in terms of non-oil exports has an important place and a significant proportion of GDP accounted for this. Research shows that the industry has faced significant challenges in recent years. Turkmen handmade carpet with outstanding dimensions and values of economic, social and cultural, production and supply dehumidified, but from the before years producing has taken a downward trend. On the basis this study is to identify and analyze the causes of depression in carpet industry in 10 Villages of Gonbad-e Qabus Township. Studied areas are in Sultan Ali, Fajr, Agh Abad and Baghli Marama sub-districts in Gonbad-e Qabus. Research methodology is combined and Extractive. First, using semi-structured interviews the causes of carpet depression from the perspective of industry experts in the study area using a coding method were analyzed which shows that the main reason of carpet weaving depression in 10 villages. Then the results of this part of the research, was basis of design the questionnaire. Questionnaire designed within the Likert scale framework, rural women 'views in relation to the causes of handmade carpet industry downturn was identified. T test and Hierarchical clustering analysis was used for analyzing questionnaire data. The view of respondents, shows that the Intra- group "lack of supportive government policies for carpet" and "weak economic aspects of rural development planning", respectively, have the greatest impact on the industry, and "lack of creativity and innovation in the field of design, color, map and quality of raw materials" and "technological backwardness in the production of carpethaveleast impact on the study villages.

Emigrating Jews to Iran and other countries, known for handmade rugs craft, caused penetrating their beliefs into those countries’ traditional artifacts and also developing Jewish rugs. According to ostensible characteristics, Jewish rugs are ones which contain Judaic signs or Jewish Merchants’ signatures. Since 1850 Jewish rugs have been produced in main cities of Iran, e.g. Kashan, Tabriz and Kerman. In fact, they were the result of combination of Judaic patterns and the rich Iranian rug craft. Occupying Palestine and emigrating Jews from all over the word, their experience of rug art and also Alliance Israelite schools helped Jews to prepare a fabricated cultural identity through producing new artifacts for their new society. Analyzing and Comparing five more abundant Jewish rugs of Iran and Occupied Palestine, semiotically and considering historical background, showed that the difference between motivations and territorial background has made their products various. Iranian cases have been faithful to the rug tradition and its aesthetic, considering workmanship and financial goals, but the cases of Occupied Palestine, Politic aims behind religious patterns and signs, have been prior than other values.

On the one hand, due to reduce oil revenues and the need for the exchange of non-oil export, especially carpet industry as the most important goods of non-oil export and on the other hand, due to the downward trend of carpet export as a national brand in the global market and overtaking countries such as China and India from Iran in recent years, the purpose of this study is to identify and prioritize strategic effective components on Hand-woven Carpet industry as a national brand in the global market. To achieve this purpose, we used the integrated approach for strategic and hierarchical analyses. First, we conducted directed and free interviews with a number of experts in the industry in order to identify the weaknesses, strengths, opportunities and threats with deep library studies and to collect the qualitative data. Also, for collecting documentary information, we used two questionnaires to prioritize and measure the relative importance of effective factors. According to analysis of the research results, the most important effective internal factors on the industry's position include: to be reliable and well-known the brand of Iranian carpet, and the lack of attention to requests, needs and tastes of the world market and the most important effective external factors on the industry's position include: the opportunity of terminating international sanctions in regard to Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the threat of entry the foreign competitors with more advanced facilities and reducing market share in recent years. Also, the aggressive strategy (Strength, Opportunity) was selected as the superior strategy for the promotion of position in the industry. According to the results, it is suggested that activists in this industry establish a comprehensive plan to identify untapped and intact world markets, capital entry and foreign expertise, optimizing resource consumption and reducing the cost of product, reinforcement of order -taking and finally, improving the distribution and sales channels by relying on knowledge of information technology.