Quarterly Scientific-Research Goljaam

Iranian carpet has an allegorical and symbolic sense of heaven and heaven-like gardens which is similar to the descriptions in the Holy Qoran, yet the existing plans and sketches in heaven-like carpets are proportionate to Iranian garden’s design and architecture (especially the Char-Bagh) in the way that it draws an everlasting picture of infinite world and heaven gardens in this world. In Islamic culture the growing path of human is from carpet to the empyrean, human beings come to the world on the carpet and fly to the empyrean and in its highest levels they lean on the best carpets made of silk in the heaven. Based on this research, it has been shown that an allegorical concept of heaven and its gardens in Iranian carpet can be found completely, which are full of Islamic gardens showing the high potentials of Iranian carpet designers in drawing and designing heaven’s spiritual concepts to weave the strings in a way that they deserve the holy concepts and remind us the everlasting heavens which ties us up to the infinite existence of it.

Tenth and Eleventh (A.H.) centuries are in line with resuming the glory and magnitude of Persian Art. Craftworks (handicrafts) including carpet, attained a great status and dignity comparing the past in the light of this revolution, and find a completely new place for itself. This important issue became a start and turning point in forming original patterns and models and creating new compositions in the design of the carpets and also strengthened the basis of the carpet designing for coming eras. It seems that such phenomenon was due to the novelties and innovations that occurred in the design and pattern of hand-knitted craftworks especially in relation to carpet and caused the prosperity of Safavid carpet. This article tries to investigate the ground and means of such innovation and revolution in the designs and patterns of the carpet of this golden era by providing internal and external indications in this regard.

Fars is one of the most important areas in kilim rugs and carpet production in Iran. Among the important reasons for variety and multiplicity of kilim rugs in Fars era, is the fact that here Turks and Fars people live together. This article has focused on the motif of Swastika or Broken Cross (Mehraneh in Persian) in these hands-knitted products. This paper aims to study the symbolic language of this motif through the time and its appearance in Qashqa’i carpets. Due to the multiplicity of the appearance of this motif, the current paper is not only concerned with the language of this symbol and its implications in Qashqa’i hand-kitted products, but also the role of Mehraneh through time in different cultures and religions. Some semiotic means have been employed herein. From viewpoint of the objective of the research, this is a fundamental one which explains the characteristics of this motif by exploring and discovering truths, realities and gaining knowledge about this motif. However, this paper is descriptive and historical for its nature and method. In other words, the common and general characteristics of this motif can be explained and orderly described by using original and referable documents and evidences. Also it will be possible to study their specifications, consider the relations of variables (if necessary) and recognize the characteristics of Swastika motif and its application in Qashqa’i carpets. The sources are visual, verbal and written.

The hunting & animal patterns is indeed one of the most important & effective motifs which can be seen in Persian Art since ancient times. For a long period of time, these motifs (which include religious & old mythological concepts, and tell about the geographical & natural human being environment, as well as his own desires, his domineeringness, and struggle for survival), have been designed & accomplished in various subjects and to their perfections by man of those ages in different arts. The importance of the hunting & animal motifs has caused these particular motifs to be repeated at any age. Meanwhile these repeated patterns have kept their own concepts & specifications regarding the variety of animals and compositions and at the same time have been rendered in innovative styles. This paper is trying to deal with one of the hunting & animals patterns in Persian Art namely: “Catch & Take” pattern. It also introduces some samples from the ancient ages till Safavid era, and finally the manifestation of these patterns from viewpoint of verity of animals & compositions have been studied in some carpets of Safavid era.

In Persian culture, carpet is the most important formal image expression of “Garden”, next to its architectural manifestation. Nowadays, while the historical gardens have already been destroyed by nature or man and lack of documents is dominant, garden’s representation in garden-carpets enables researchers to study the history of Persian gardens. This paper, analyzes Persian garden-carpet in order to re-think the Persian garden concentrated order, according to the theories of environmental psychology. Main purpose of this study is to find the relationship between “Persian gardens’ architectural order”, “Garden– carpets” and “Gardens’ effects on Man’s mental health” with emphasis on the Theory of “Environmental Ecological Perception”. Recognition of “perception-conception order” in Persian garden and garden-carpets is one of the results of this study. 

In addition to medical recognition applications, X-ray CT-scan images are increasingly found to have more innovative and widespread applications. Due to the ability of producing high resolution and high contrast images from soft tissues with low attenuation coefficients, the usage of X-ray micro-focus source, which has a very small focal point (in the range of micrometer), plays an important role in those new applications. Since employing non-original knots in hand-knitted carpet reduces the carpet quality and the originality of knots cannot be visually recognized, in this research, a method has been introduced for recognition of the 3D structure of hand-knitted carpet using CT-scan images provided by micro-focus X-ray source. The images obtained by inverse Radon transform can even show the smallest units in the inner structure of the finest hand-knitted carpets. This method is a powerful device to recognize the originality, to inspect the structure and to study the impacts of different parameters on the structure of hand-knitted carpets and also for other applications which need scrutiny of 3D textiles.

Proper and rational collecting, classifying and regular reporting of financial data in a manufacturing unit requires establishing an appropriate and compiled cost accounting data system so that based on these reports, the managers of the manufacturing units can make their decisions for planning, control of production and also cost reduction. Since the hand-knitted carpet industry is a competitor one, so a financial data system and especially a cost accounting system are required to preserve its situation in the marketplace and to plan for future. The objective of this research is to provide an appropriate template for determining the cost of carpet industry (hand-knitted carpets) to be employed in the cost accounting system. This will provide the necessary information for managers of the carpet manufacturing units. The material for this paper has been collected by library and field research methods including: learning the stages of carpet manufacturing, theoretical accounting fundamentals, and cost analysis templates research. The Delphi test method has been utilized and results have been presented to the specialists for review. A related questionnaire has also been provided along with the results to collect the reviewers’ opinions. This process has been followed until a common and stable result has been attained.

UV irradiation was known as an important factor for skin cancer and also textile fibers and dyes degradation. UV rays have high energy photons degrading dyes and fibers causing fading and rotting of textiles when they are exposed to sunlight. The sun blocking properties of a textile are enhanced when a dye, pigment, delustrant, or UV absorber is present which absorbs UV radiation and releases heat. They block the transmission of UV and inhibit the dye and fiber exposure. In this study, natural dye of madder with different mordants and two organic acids including: tannic acid and citric acid were selected for dyeing wool. Impacts of tanninc acid and madder on UV transmission were investigated. Also the effects of madder on protecting fabrics against UV were determined by measuring their tensile strength. The results indicate that tannic acid has positive influences on blocking UV and even increasing the tensile strength. The results also reveal that silver nitrate and copper sulphate are the best UV blocking among others. Finally, the wool fabric sample treated with silver nitrate and dyed with madder along with tannic acid exhibits the highest protection against UV.

The hand-woven products indicate the identity and rich culture of our country, Iran. The weavers of “Bidgeneh village” have knitted faith and love in the warp and weft of their carpets. The Bidgeneh carpet, as one of the manifestations of high culture and art of Iran has been forgotten for many years. In spite of the long history of carpet-knitting in this village, there has been little research on the matter. In this paper, we have tried to revive this art by looking closer at the effective elements which involve in its formation. Initially we have shown that except a few disperse studies on the subject, yet there has not been done a full research on these carpets. Then we have studied pieces of the indigenous carpets and have carried out pathological studies for them. Finally, some methods have been recommended for upgrading and reviving the carpets of this region.

One of the most important factors resulting in outstanding qualities of Persian carpets is their designs. In designing a carpet, the important challenge is to strike a balance between preserving the cultural and artistic values of the design and it’s innovative. Using principles of visual arts, in this paper an attempt has been made to analyze genuine carpet designs and to identify their major features. These principles may guide designers to create new designs as genuine as the past masterpieces. The principles also may be used in evaluating the innovative designs, currently being used in Persian carpets. Applying these principles to some innovative carpet designs reveals that most of the unsuccessful designs suffer from lack of cultural values, and poor designing, composition and positioning. The paper also recommends some what-to-do and not-to-do for those carpet designs that are meant to be innovative.

Since 13th century (A.H.), we have been encountering the so-called pictorial rugs in Iran. These rugs have their own styles and sizes and reflect two major points: first, a kind of change in fabrication and consumption taste and second, the influence of other types of art and social reformations. Iranian pictorial rugs artists have designed and woven these rugs using themes such as ancient or contemporary Iranian kings’ portraits. Among which, King Hooshang (Hooshang Shah) is one of the figures who can be seen in these fabrics and weavings very often. Studies show that King Hooshang stands on a peculiar position among Iranian mythical kings. He is supposed to be the discoverer of many of the instrumental and influential elements of the human life and civilization in Iranian mythology. On the other hand, he is believed to have so many praiseworthy and humane traits. These traits and features can justify the presence of this mythical king’s portrait in art works and particularly rug weavings.

Each entity in the universe is a symbol, containing a meaning which must be sought in its own circle of existence or maybe even out of it. The source of every symbol is either nature or a derivative of it, in one way or another. In carpet designing process, a deep and rich sensation is expressed using pure and abstract objects and shapes. Fish too, is a symbol of this kind which will be considered in this paper. This symbol can be observed in various parts of Iran embodied in different shapes and forms which means it has definitely been affected by geographical, artistic and cultural parameters of every specific area.

As patterns of other Iranian handicrafts, carpet patterns are valuable and extensively rich sources of visual elements to be used in today’s graphical works whenever appropriate. Due to the fact that these patterns have paved a long way through the history of carpet-weaving, they have been evolved into distilled and beautiful patterns of precise and orderly design structures. It is a cultural necessity that graphics students be acquainted with these patterns and gain knowledge and expertise about them because using these patterns plays an important role in both increasing their visual literacy and creating cultural identity. Obviously, appropriate employment of these patterns requires both suitable knowledge of them and recognition of the right and opportune time of using them which in its turn, demands skill and experience of graphic designers while employing these patterns. In the case of lacking each of aforementioned items by designers, these patterns can not be used appropriately and their aesthetic and cultural aspects will be destroyed.

Design, color and pattern, which are of the carpet overriding esthetic elements, create identity for a carpet. Designers have been depicting the most beautiful and attractive pictures as the carpet design for the past centuries. The history of incorporating computer-based designs into carpets does not exceed three decades; therefore, it is a present-day technology adopted: In the similar vein, it has provided us with a wide range of possibilities. However, due to lack of interest in the widespread use of computer in many carpet-manufacturing procedures, it seems to have been faded into insignificance; therefore, an attempt should be made in order to overcome the challenges between traditional designing atmosphere by hand & that of computer. There are some unanswerable questions as follows: 1) does computer ruin the carpet design genuineness?; 2) is the presence of computer fundamentally necessary in this field?, and 3) will the relationship between an artisan and an apprentice break down when there are countless patterns & designs saved in the computer and there is no need for these manually-designed patterns to be learned & handed down. The method of research adopted here is a case study. In order to recognize each of the above-said methods in designing carpets, it was deemed necessary to study the history of formation of manual designing and the impact of computers in speeding up the production of carpet drawings. In addition, a comparison has been made between computer-aided drawings with that of manual ones. To do this, appropriate data was collected via library resources & interviewing great masters. The research revealed that each one of the manual & computer-aided carpet drawings have special specifications which have been contributed to their similarities & differences. Between them nevertheless, the computer-software stem from manual designing. The distinctive characteristic of computer in speeding up the production is that it is regarded important in both drawing and other fields related to carpet such as approximate calculations, weaving & marketing. It seems that the disinterest of traditional carpet designers in making use of computer has nothing to do with using a computer as a tool; in the other hand, another convincing reason shall be uncovered. It is of paramount importance to describe computer in carpet drawing correctly.

Persian carpet is a manifestation of all of our national arts. There are thousands of people working in this trade. These carpets are produced by efforts of so many workers and artists. Obviously, it is necessary to gain a good knowledge of precious carpets these days because due to good foreign market for them, unfortunately, these weavings with their exceptional designs have been exported abroad and there is almost no indication of them in Iranian artistic centers. Precious carpets are only presented in exhibitions and carpet shops and so often their artists and weavers fade into obscurity. Only few merchants and a number of particular persons know these people and even there can be no attempt to introduce them to art societies. This paper, beginning with a brief review of the history of Tabriz accompanied with the history of carpet-weaving in this area, introduces some designing and coloring techniques used for precious and high quality carpets of Tabriz and also their designers. Then it proceeds to present some characteristics of these carpets including: weaving method, used materials, colors and son on.

This article aims at studying the geometrical proportions of five types of most outstanding designs of Safavid carpets as one of the most important styles in carpet art of Iran. This research has been conducted using geometric methods of translation of measures and finding the basic module for identifying the proportions in carpets for to determination and comparison of modules with each other. Then the findings of the research have been compared with reference geometrical proportions of the Iranian geometry. Ultimately, the findings of this paper have been compared with special proportions present in decorative arts of the Timurids, Ilkhanid, and Seljuk periods, which possess special and specific proportions according to researchers, in order for determining the origin of this system of proportions. The results indicate that the carpets have general geometrical proportions. Such proportions include certain proportions between the pattern and dimensions of carpets.

The majority of the Shasavan tribe lives in northwest Iran near the city of Ardabil and Dasht-e Moghan. Small groups of Shahsavan, however, moved to central Iran near Saveh, Garmsar, and Varamin. In Farsi (official language of Iran) Shahsavan means "those who love the Shah (king)"; Most of their weavings consist of practical pieces such as saddle bags, traveling bags and animal trappings. Their textiles frequently use the Soumak and Kilim weaves. It is likely that traditionally each clan of the Shahsavan confederation had its own designs and carpet presents its idea — the idea of a reality that simultaneously unfolds the Turkish-speaking Shahsavan people weave bags in the sumak technique. A series of large diamond latch hook medallions repeats down the field, each enclosed in a compartment of different color. Shahsavan weavings have a strongly tribal flavor with highly abstract, geometrical designs and rich colors. They are sometimes distinguished by certain shades of lavender or deep pink and salmon tones, in conjunction with soft blues. Shahsavan carpets are very similar to Caucasian carpets. The Shahsevan tribes were originally transported and resettled in the Northwest from Central Asia by the Persian kings in the seventeenth century. This helps to explain the ties between these rugs and those of the Turkmans and other Central Asian tribes. This paper discusses the ancient roots of tribal weaving, the interrelatedness of common designs and tribal motifs in Shahsavan and Caucasusian Kilims. Larger Shahsavan rugs are uncommon, and often they are mistaken for rugs from the nearby Caucasus region.

This article is trying to study production and distribution system based on providing value chain with the aim of identifying production & distribution system of hand-made carpet firstly; and studying the feasibility of changing from the push system to the pull system regarding the viewpoints of the elite and expert, secondly. In order to achieve this goal, the descriptive method of research has been used. Statistical population of this study includes elite and informed experts in production & distribution of hand-made carpets. Due to acquaintance of Iran National Carpet Center (INCC) with these people, 55 experts have been selected as the statistical samples. For collecting required information, a questionnaire has been used. The results of this study show that the present system of production & distribution of hand-made carpet in Iran is based on push system, which means the production & distribution of this product is not totally based on customer taste and Iranian experts active in this field try to provide carpets for target customers with hope that they will see those carpets and their art and hopefully will be encouraged to purchase them. But in most of cases, this method is not an effective one and competitors are producing their carpets incorporating the understanding of the customers’ taste regarding color, shape, size and drawing. Also the results of this study show that with planning and informing active people in this industry, it is possible to change the system from the push type to the pull one.

Books and topics of traditional arts (especially hand-made carpet) have not been compiled based on scientific methods. For years, the literature of carpet design and motif is strangely non-structural and full of deficiencies; even the major writers of the field follow in others’ footsteps. This article tries to prepare the ground for a different viewpoint: a better understanding and classification of “design” and “motif” in Iranian carpets requires solid and reliable bases. Review of those books which have mentioned designs and motifs and have introduced a classification for them reveals that the definitions are heterogenic, references and structures are unknown and there are many sharp and tremendous differences among them, as if there is no cognitive and conceptual objective to be drawn from such classifications. None of such categories can be regarded as scientific, therefore design and motif shall be defined using comprehensive methods but not merely descriptive ones. Ultimately this paper proposes that “design” can be considered as the architecture and overall image of those motifs included in a text, while “motif” can be regarded as the element which portrays the design by means of its capabilities.

Motifs pass through the mental filters of different people. The time and mind canals govern key roles in forming the designs. Most of the carpets’ designs and motifs are the products of the cultural exchanges among different nations and races. Cultural and social products such as stories, dialects, traditions, customs etc. are exchanged among different nations and races, meanwhile get local characteristics; motifs are also not apart from this formula. They are also modified and changed in the process of movement from one location to another one. Each motif can be considered as the offspring of the social needs of its community in a certain period of time. The cursive designs of Heris also follow such formula. The organic and urban designs (i.e. Shah Abbassi medallion design) have been changed into a geometrical design by the carpet weavers and consequently innovative visual models have been introduced to visual culture of the carpets as the result of gradual mental-oriented changes and modification of those designs. The relationship between some motifs in Heris carpets such as: “Gobak”, “Lalak”, “Toosbagha” etc. and mythological elements is significant. The mental-oriented weavers of this field have created a collection of new motifs by utilizing simile and abstraction.