Quarterly Scientific-Research Goljaam

This study discusses the manifestation of carpets in children’s literature. Since carpets are one of the universal symbols of Iranian art and culture, scholars and educators should attempt to institutionalize this art and craft as a cultural issue in the society. Obviously, such a movement must begin from childhood and use methods and models based on children’s interests. A story is one model that children naturally admire. The present article is a case study of one of the best Iranian children stories on the topic of carpets. The article has presented and interpreted various parts of the story, demonstrating how the author, by pointing to the traditional motifs of carpets, making use of a symbolic language, religious and national symbols and values, the appropriate techniques of writing for children, as well as narrating the life of a little girl working in a carpet weaving workshop, has represented the features and values of carpets in both realistic and surrealistic contexts. The cultural and social status of carpet weavers and other groups involved in the production of carpets must be taken into further consideration. These people should receive due respect as artists preserving a major part of Islamic Iran’s cultural heritage.

After the World War II was over, and due to the relative peace of mind, a population explosion occurred and baby boomers were born. This generation which is called “Generation X” entered the 80’s as the buyers of homes and consumers of furniture, bed, mattress and rugs. This was one of the reasons for huge increase in demand for Oriental rugs of the 80’s. In this short article, we study three main variables which have played a significant role in the rug market and compare three main factors in two time periods, in the early 1980’s and late 1990’s up to now. The variables under study are:
1- Buyers (who were/are they and how they reacted/react in the rug market?)
2- Sellers and the distribution channels (who were/are they and how they operated/operate?)
3- The rugs (material, color, design, and price)
It is with knowledge of the rug market and its components and studying the trends and changes that we can become successful players in the field, no matter which role we play (producer, exporter, importer, wholesaler, or end user). We use the term “old” to identify the early years of the 1980’s and “new” to identify the late years of the 1990’s and the beginning years of the 21st century. By seller, we mean the dealer or the sales people who sold or sell rugs. By customer, or buyer, we mean the end-user who buys the rug for his/her own use at home.

In Islam the “Tree of Life” is named as Sedreh or Tuba and the followers of Islam believe that this tree is grown in Heaven; therefore it is an interesting subject for artistic innovative. In Turkmen terminology “tree of life” is called “Yashaish bagh”. In this study we have made an effort to evaluate the symbol of the Tree and the “Tree of Life”, with reference to the shapes of the “Tree of Life” in the ancient civilizations and compare this shapes with the patterns present in the Turkmen rugs and hand – woven pieces; and to study the hypothesis that the name “Tree of Life” could be assigned to these patterns. The carried out comparisons show that Tree and “Tree of Life” designs in Turkment carpets patterns are similar to Islamic and ancient patterns.

Each civilization make own culture and cultural productions that have sign of identification of that culture. Islamic civilization and its genuine culture is settled this identity in obey of god’s commands and Moslems are innovated some beautiful productions that symbol of this delivery. Prayer rug is one of these productions. It is necessary to Moslems to pray five times in a day. Among Turkmen people, it is necessary to exist one ore some prayer rug in bride’s trousseau. This inquiry is tried to introduce kinds of prayer rugs and their patterns and symbols.

A new trend of weaving pictures in Qajar era is considered to be a revolution in the art of carpet-weaving whether from viewpoint of form or concept. These pictorial rugs were intended to be spread on the floor no more, but they were woven for visual satisfaction, exactly as pictures. These pictures are like an encyclopedia of the cultural life of that era, which covers beliefs, culture and life of the people and can be employed for discovering unknown aspects of their culture and outlook. This paper has amid to understand and find the meaning of one of these rugs, namely "Mary and Jesus Christ" by analyzing it using Erwin Panofsky's iconographic method for finding different meaning layers. The paper concludes that the above-mentioned rug has the function of an icon and for fulfilling its "monumental" and "didactic" objectives makes use of Islam doctrine, Qoran's verses and Iranian mystical art and literature. At the end, in search of deep and concealed meanings of this icon hidden beneath its different meaning layers and for finding its "artistic desire" and cultural reasons for its creation, this article shows the votive objective of this rug as a means of obtaining offspring and conforms the public's belief in miraculous power of the icon.

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.

In the field of Iranian hand-woven rugs, there are different regions with varied histories some of which are still unknown or neglected. Among these are the Shariat-madar Hur rugs which belong to the ancient region of "Eij" and not long ago, were considered as unique masterpieces of carpet-weaving in Fars province. Definitely, one of the essential investigations in the field of hand-woven rugs is to uncover these cultural treasures from the mysteries of time. The present study aims at introducing this unknown identity with all of its features including designs and concepts hidden in its symbolic ornaments. By using field and library research methods, this paper tries to bring the potentials of the inventive and anonymous weavers of this particular type of rugs to the attention of the researchers and admirers of Iranian rugs. The revealed facts in this study can contribute to an increase in the required information in researching about and planning Iranian carpets. Furthermore, this original study prevents the information regarding this rug from disappearing and contributes to the revival of this type of rug in the region of Eij and Estahban.

Since long ago the motif of “fish” has been one of the motifs employed in Persian artworks. As well as having extraordinary beauty of form, fish has deep symbolic meanings and has motivated Persian artists of different ages to employ it in their works. Rugs of Safavid era are among such artworks. Both in ancient Iranian mythology and also in Islamic culture, fish has enjoyed a significant meaning and role. Since Movlana in his Mathnavi has offered special interpretation of symbolic meanings for fish, it has been tried in this paper to examine the symbolic meanings of fish motif in Safavid rugs in the light of Movlana’s interpretation. In this article, these questions have been answered: (1) What is the place of fish in ancient Iranian mythology and also in Quran?; (2) What are the symbolic meanings of fish motif in Mathnavi?; and finally (3) What are the symbolic meanings of fish motif in Safavid rugs in the light of Movlana’s Mathnavi? This motif carries with itself several symbolic meanings like: mystic, path of truth, perfect human and the man from heaven, as well as different meanings such as: earth, body, and earthly man.

Various Persian traditional arts can be understood as different aspects of a unique concept. All of them represent substantial meanings which root in both Islamic and Iranian beliefs. The symbolic language of these arts and the ability of being expressed in various arts let artists to choose proper methods for their work. Rug and architecture are the most important Persian arts and two aspects of Persian symbolic design methods. This paper tries to focus on Mihrabi rugs as a direct reflection of one of architectural components of mosque architecture in rug design as a suitable carpet for praying time. The paper intends to show how ancient and Islamic architectural symbols affect symbolic expression of these rugs and how these different arts show a homogeneous idea in terms of their own capacities. This study uses a descriptive method and a comparative semiotic approach from historical and iconographical viewpoint and traces the mosque architecture elements and symbolic plant designs of Mihrabi rugs. Paradigmatic process shows some evidences regarding designers’ efforts to represent triple structure of ancient Mithraism altars in the form of mosque space structures and heaven on the limited space of rugs by replacing a triple division of floral patterns instead of architectural structure of mosques in a symbolic way, so the middle tree represents the ancient tree of life and recalls the main dome and two cypresses with their roots in ground and their heads up to the sky are the symbols of minarets. This fulfills artist’s objective to demonstrate such rugs as mosques and linkage between heaven and earth. 

Arab Jinni rugs, illustrate special attitude of their creators who made exceptional and mysterious hand-made weavings. In 1993, Dr. Parham ascertained the name of this tribe as well as their weavings to Persian carpet literature for the first time. Despite unfamiliarity of this tribe in Iran's literature and historical documents, it is mentioned in detail in the lineage books of Arab and Quran commentaries. Apparently in the ethnic and ideological beliefs of this tribe, believe in jinni and tendency to their mysteries is one of the factors that affect their motifs and designs. Recognition of Arab-Jinni tribes and their beliefs, plausible ancestral and ideological relation of this mysterious and unknown tribe with them, totemic tendencies of creators of such rugs, the influence of cultural reconciliation of three important western Asia, Mesopotamia, and Persia-India civilizations on the formation of their motifs are among the most important outcomes of this research.

Findings and opuses of Islamic civilization era are designed and rendered on different surfaces such as wood, stone tablet, tore, cloth, kilims, jijims, carpets and rugs in geometrical or curvilinear forms of motifs existing in nature or purely spiritual symbols. The art of carpet designing and weaving which was mixed with its concurrent crafts and industry as well as naturalistic and visual symbols, is the key to the connection of the artist to his/her surroundings and even his/her thoughts, faith and beliefs and incorporated with novelty. This research is mainly concerned with such Persian carpets which their designs include a Mihrab on a carpet (prayer rug). This paper focuses mainly on Persian Mihrabi carpets to present the common concepts in the culture of Islamic era, such as, "Taqe Mihrab" and "Darvaze"(gate). Then the origins of such carpets are examined regarding the painting works, and some works are introduced. Some early examples, in which flowers, plants and birds are used as well as two common symbols in such carpets, i.e., Qandil and cypress tree, are discussed and analyzed.

Armani-baf (Irano-Armenian Rug) is going to be thoroughly extinct. By the settlement of Armenians in some local provinces of Iran, preserving the original features of Iranian carpet and influenced by ancient Armenian tradition of carpet weaving, such carpets were woven at the period of Shah-Abbas, the Great. Having many cultural commonalities, Iranian and Armenian people have had a long lasting history of cultural and civilizational relations. So the features of their cultural traditions is clearly reflected in their wide range of art and craft styles. Even before the emigration of Armenians to Iran, carpet weaving has been a well-known craft among both mentioned people. Despite this, rather than Armenian tradition, the Irano-Armenian Rugs mostly represent the Iranian native tradition of carpet weaving. The analysis of this hypothesis is highly dependent on comparative study of two mentioned carpet weaving traditions, considering: design, color, and weaving specifications. Indeed here with a pragmatic approach the data, gathered through field (conversation) and library research, is analyzed on a descriptive-comparative basis.

 Rugs in Chaharmahal va Bakhtiari have a great variety of design patterns and colors. One of these patterns is the "frame" design pattern that has its own variations. Frame design patterns are created in two ways: brick and Qabqabi. This paper will try to study the Qabqabi design pattern and its variants in rural area rug and its evolution. Variations of Qabqabi design pattern include simple frame, ring frame (cypress pine), Hassan Khani frame, bow frame, samovar frame and rose frame. The research questions include: When the frame design pattern was used for the first time in the area? What are the types of frame design patterns? What are the differences of filling motifs, structures and frame connections in different part of the province? How their evolution has been accomplished? The most diverse samples belong to which area? It has been also tried to use library-based and field study methods for classification and analysis of Qabqabi carpets of the area. For this purpose, the form of the frame, decorations of walls, connections, coloring of the frames, decorations within the frames within frames and the distribution of frames will also be examined.

 One of the outcomes of the long wars in Afghanistan is the emergence of "war rugs". In this paper, the evolution of the war rugs in Afghanistan has been studied using a descriptive-analytical method and the data has been collected using field study and library-based research. The results of the research indicated that from the beginning to the present time, the war rugs in Afghanistan could be categorized into three distinguished generations. In the first generation of the war rugs, which is related to the time of Mujahidin-Soviet war, we still observe continuance of the Afghan rugs conventions. However, from 1990s onward, the traditional motifs are not commonly displayed in these rugs. In the second generation of the war rugs, often woven by Afghan refugees in Pakistan, gradually the motifs of weapons and military equipment along with the traditional motifs became dominant, whereas, the larger portion of the spaces of the rugs was allocated to the military motifs. Finally, the third generation of the war rugs displayed the patterns and motifs of the events of September 11, 2001 in the United States and their consequences. This generation includes the designs and motifs with the intense political manifestations followed by deterioration of quality for the war rugs.

One of the prosperous periods of Persian commercial carpet industry is the Safavid era especially the 10th and 11th centuries (A.H.). Governments’ attention to arts and artists and expanding the facilities on the one hand, and willingness of other artists such as illumination artists and Persian painters’ to beautiful designs for carpets, along with the progress of the dyeing industry, provided carpet weaving with a special place in the field of art and industry. The main question of the present study is: Who were the carpet designers at different geographical locations and in different times for various woven products? The main hypothesis in this paper is that in Safavid era, some of carpets were designed by famous Persian paintings artists. For this purpose, a comparative method has been used for comparing two survived carpet samples with the paintings of that era. It can be seen that the most of the arts, including traditional arts and architecture, were closely related at that era which indicate the existence of a unified artistic management in the cultural system of that period, and such responsibility was undertaken by the prominent painters and architects. The comparison of motifs of paintings and carpet may indicate that some of the carpets have been designed by some great painters such as Kamal al-Din Behzad and Aghamirak Isfahani and Soltan Mohammad Iraqi, etc and there are some valuable carpets woven directly under the supervision of these masters. On the other hand, some carpet designers were trained who followed their masters and this indirectly influenced the development of carpet motifs, so that the carpet designers were mostly inspired by these masters in manufacturing workshops.

Carpet is one of the oldest and most ancient traditional arts that in addition to satisfying practical needs, reflects beliefs, myths and other conceptions. These concepts are manifested in the context of rugs, with colorful and beautiful motifs informed by inspiration. In this paper, in addition to identification of animal motifs in the rural rugs of Hamadan, these motifs have been classified as quadrupeds, birds, and aquatic animals. Moreover, ritual - mythical roots of such motifs have been studied. Among animal motifs, some birds (falcon and peacock), some aquatic animals (fish and turtle and crab) and livestock (goat), all have the concept of blessing and fertility.

 Depicting the stories of Shahnameh is an issue that has attracted the attention of artists in different periods. Among these artists, rug designers can be named. In Qajar era, images of Shahnameh abundantly can be seen on pictorial rugs. Rostam's battles and epic tales are the stories that are highly regarded by such artists. The battles of Rostam and his battle with the Akvan the demon have attracted much more attention. We will analyze a carpet in which the war is shown within an altar. The question that arises here is: Is the objective of the image of such tale is more than just depicting a battle, since it is located inside an altar? And if the answer is affirmative, what are the reasons? To give a suitable answer based on Jung's ideas, first we have to try to introduce the archetype, and then derive such archetypes out of the carpet. This article is a descriptive - analytic study. We want to offer a different analysis according to the psychology of Jung's archetype.

 Prayer rug is one of hand-woven products which have been common in Sistan & Baluchestan from ancient times till now, and it has deep spiritual meanings in addition to visual beauty, which has attracted the researchers to itself, especially native experts of this province in the recent two decades. In order to study the prayer rugs, we will classify them into adoptive, half–adoptive, native and original, new and intuitive groups according to people's authentic beliefs and significant motifs which are used in them. The most common and beautiful ones of these samples are the native designs, which include Mehrabi, frame, domical-minaret and prayer rugs. Questions which are asked in this research are as follows: How is general structure of rug prayer rugs of Sistan & Baluchestan? Which are the most important designs and motifs of Sistan & Baluchestan prayer rugs which have caused their durability? Designs and colors used in rug prayer of Sistan & Baluchestan are affected by nature, people's wishes and regional culture. Generally, prayer rugs' structure and motifs are closely similar in most areas of the regions and they have the some visual and meaningful roots, and the most part of these prayer rugs have geometric shapes. Features of native weaving and common raw materials of the province also have been reviewed in this study. The research methodology is analytic and descriptive, and data collection is done with referring to written and unwritten sources in addition to documented studies. Observation results are obtained from field studies and investigation and analysis of data and pictures is a criterion for identifying prayer rugs and hand-woven products of this province, and can helps for reclamation and protection of native art of this region.

 The Safavid Era is considered as the golden age of Iranian carpet history, which in addition to beauty of pattern, motif and color, has yielded worthwhile concepts on its carpets. The lion motif is one of those motifs on carpets of Safavid Era which have been depicted as both a prey and a hunter. Repetition of, and emphasis on this motif, which contains diverse concepts and senses in Iranian and Islamic cultures as well as gnostic viewpoints, raise this question that what concepts are manifested by the motif of lion. Mowlana regards the lion as the symbol of God, God's names and traits, the symbol of fate, people of virtue and saints as well as symbol of Mohammad Prophet, Hazrat Ali, wisdom, thinking and even sensuality. However, in his view, the concept of the lion is further interpreted to be human and perfect human rather than other symbols. A meaningful relationship, in the visual and conceptual studies, can be seen among lion motif in the view of Mowlana and on Safavid carpets. In more than 10 samples of the carpets, where the lion motifs studied in different situation and diverse positions, it was observed and implied that the lion, after unwieldy and difficult struggle, reaches to the center of the universe, i.e. the medallion of the carpet, and finally attain human-like lion degree. This concept also is reflected in the ideas of Mowlana. This study has been performed using library method, as well as the case study of carpets of Safavid using content analysis method and by comparison of samples.

East Azerbaijan is one of the most important centers of production and trade of hand-woven carpets in Iran. Several cities in this province participate in the production of this artic-industrial commodity. Heriz is one of these cities that has been well-known for weaving precious and beautiful rugs. Considering the unique characteristics of design, motif, color and texture, Heriz rugs are of great fame worldwide. The main purpose of the present study is to thoroughly examine samples of contemporary rug designs of the region and to identify their design structure. It also attempts to find answers to the questions of how these rugs are designed and what their patterns are. Subsequently, it scrutinizes the main features of rugs in this region and introduces and explores their design structure. Finally, particular styles dominating the design of Heriz rugs are discussed. The study is a self-explanatory one and the collected data was analyzed qualitatively. The data for the study was mainly collected through field studies and in some few cases library references have also been used. The study revealed that there has been and are fixed principles and structures in the design, color and texture of contemporary Heriz rugs and currently rugs in Heriz region are woven according to them.