Scientific Journal of Motaleate-e Tatbighi-e Honar

Shahsevan nomads live in Northwest of Iran. This tribe was established in Safavid era which is one of the magnificent periods in the Iranian history, as a powerful army by Shah Abbas I to support Ghezelbash soldiers as the strong defending forces of the country to encounter the foreign powers. The tribe was scattered in different historical periods to settle in different areas such as the central parts (Baghdadi tribe) and Southern parts (Fars Inaloo and Baharloo tribes) of Iran. The common evidences of their cultural roots can be found in the areas they lived that is the cause of spreading their art and culture in the history of Shahsevani Rugs from Northwest to the South of Iran. This article tries to introduce the various designs and motifs of Shahsevan Rugs in Iran in spite of widespread living places of the tribe. Comparing the structural elements of designs and motifs of Shahsevani Rugs (medallion, corners and context and border motifs) in all of the three mentioned areas, it is tried to find the shared structures taken from formal and geometric features of the rugs. The data in this descriptive-comparative article are analyzed in the form of qualitative-interpretative method. The literature is collected by the library method and the sample studies are identified as a field study by the authors. The findings indicate that there are ample similarities in the general structure of Shahsevan Rugs such as patterns and motifs and the few differences, if any, are manifested in the applying priority of the motifs (animal, geometric, plant) and in the structure of some of the motifs that are due to the adjacency of this tribe with other tribes or some ethnic relationships such as marriage with other nomads.