Study of Animal Motifs of Sassanid Textile Design

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Associate Professor of Alzahra University

2 Master in Painting, Faculty of Art, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Textile industry reached great prosperity during Sassanid Empire. Sassanid fabrics were appreciated due to the quality and unique designs. Decorative patterns of Sassanid textiles are contained geometric, plant, human and animal motifs and among all of them, animal motifs are the most notable ones. The present study investigates the expressive, mythical and visual aspects of animal motifs of Sassanid fabrics, thereby answering these questions: How are bird and quadruped motifs illustrated on fabrics? What is the color of these motifs? And what are the other ornaments that used on textiles? The study is done by analytical-descriptive method by historical approach and the information is accumulated by means of library method. The authors attempted to identify and classify animal motifs of remained fabrics and inspect the importance of the existence of these ornaments. In this article, nine images of limited samples of Sassanid fabrics have been analyzed in terms of visual and cultural-roots features. In general, the results define that, the animal motifs of Sassanid design included quadrupeds and birds which are drawn by simple lines and geometrical shapes. Overall, artists tend to use animals which had spiritual and mythical massages. Quadruped patterns include ram, horse, lion and hog. Additionally, bird patterns contain eagle, peacock, rooster and duck. We can see both figurative and abstract motifs with primarily colors which have been mostly used. The drawings have been done by geometric and delicate lines, also artists used plant and geometrical shapes to design animals' bodies.

Keywords

🔓 © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Tissaphernes Archaeological Research Group, Tehran, Iran. Open Access. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The ethical policy of Ancient Iranian Studies is based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and complies with International Committee of Ancient Iranian Studies Editorial Board codes of conduct. Readers, authors, reviewers and editors should follow these ethical policies once working with Ancient Iranian Studies. The ethical policy of Ancient Iranian Studies is liable to determine which of the typical research papers or articles submitted to the journal should be published in the concerned issue. For information on this matter in publishing and ethical guidelines please visit www.publicationethics.org.

References

Bier, C. (2004). Pattern Power: Textiles and the Transmission of Knowledge. Textile Society of America 9th Biennial Symposium. Oakland, California: Textile Society of America. 144-153.
Comparti, M. (2005).  Sasanian Textile Art: An Iconographic Approach. Studies on Persianate Societies. (3). 144-163. 
Jamalpur, A. (2015). Weaving in Sasanian Dynasty. Research Journal of Fisheries and -Hydrobiology, 372-375.
Jalali, M. & Mason, G. (2013). Textiles in Global trade: Sasanian Textiles and its Distinctive Motifs. https://www.downloadmaghaleh.com/wp-content/uploads/edd/maghaleh/1398/aliniya.parche-min.pdf. (Retrieved 3June. 2021)
URL1: https://abadis.ir/fatofaشاهجانی/ (access date 2021/06/05).
URL2: https://abadis.ir/دبیقی (access date: 2021/06/05).
URL3: https://www.vajehyab.com/
 

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History

  • Receive Date: 23 February 2022
  • Revise Date: 14 April 2022
  • Accept Date: 14 April 2022

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