The production of textiles began very early in the Near East, even before the development of settled villages and the domestication of plants and animals in the Neolithic Period (New Stone Age, the 7th and 6th millennia B.C.). Flax was one of the first fibers to be woven; it appears in an elegantly knotted net with a woven border found in the Nahal Hemar Cave on the southwest banks of the Dead Sea. “Flax also appears about the same time in Anatolia at Çatal Hüyük, a partially excavated site once covering some 32 (?) acres. The Çatal Hüyük textiles, which also included wool ormohair worked in S- and Z-spun two-ply yarns, came from intramural burials where they bound up the bones of the dead and in one case filled a skull. Unfortunately, the fires that destroyed the site on several occasions charred the fabrics so that no trace of color now remains. However, the dye plants woad, madder and weld are native to the region, and the excavator believed that they were used at Çatal Hüyük.

The aim of this article is to introduce a fine and representative, but little-known, collection of Persian woven fabrics in the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. These superb specimens reflect both the chronological and technical range of textile production in Islamic Iran, from the provocative fabrics found at Rayy to the myriad of sumptuous weavings produced on Safavid looms.

The greatest number of these textiles entered the Museum's collection through the active efforts of a single person, F. Cleveland Morgan. A pioneering and avid collector, true connoisseur and art lover, Morgan founded the Museum's Decorative Arts department in 1917 and, during his fifty years’ association with the Museum, many objects found their way into the Montreal collection. Not only did he himself contribute many objects to develop then little appreciated fields, such as Islamic art, but he also encouraged other donors and advised potential patrons to follow his example. In a final act of generosity, Morgan bequeathed his own collection to the Museum, thus further enriching the department which he himself had created.

Zīlū seems to be a term of Persian origin. It refers to a type of reversible cotton floor “spread”, generally either blue and white or light brown and white in colour, which is decorated with stylized geometrical motifs and patterns. The blue cotton yarns in Zīlū are the same as those used in weaving palās, or denim cloth; the white yarns are undyed cotton (fig. 1).

Zīlū were the traditional floorcoverings in most mosques in the south, central and Khurasan regions of Iran, that is, in the country's drier areas; because the yarns used in their construction deteriorate in cold, damp environments, a/a are uncommon in otherparts of Iran. Zīlū were woven to fit the shabistān and the atvān of mosques. The names of patrons and craftsmen were customarily woven into those Zīlū presented as vaqfvo mosques and other religious institutions (figs. 2 - 3).

A Zīlū fragmentin the Islamic Museum, Cairo (figs. 1-3) is one of the oldest known carpets that can at present be firmly attributed to Islamic Iran. The Cairo Zīlū is one of three extant dated and inscribed pieces commissioned in 963/1556 as vaqf, or an endowment, for the Masjid-i Jāmi’ of the Nūrīyyah Khānāqāh in Taf t, a village approximately 26 kilometres southwest of Yazd. A second fragment was discovered in the Shah Vali Mosque in Taft; it has been described and illustrated by Afshar. Ettinghausen has discussed the third fragment, which appeared on the Tehran art market in 1954; its present location is unknown.

Metallic yarns, particularly those wrapped with gold and silver, have been used throughout much of recorded history to create fabrics and garments of surpassing beauty which exemplified splendor and opulence. Extant examples are valued not only for their beauty, but also for their historical significance. The physical assessment of these fabrics usually includes a visual examination to ascertain the weave structure and fibre colors. Optical microscopic examination can add to this information, but it is limited at higher powers of magnification by an increasing loss of depth of field.

Pre-nineteenth century Iranian history is short on numbers, or at least on reliable ones. Lack of quantitative data is perhaps the greatest obstacle confronting historians of pre-modern Iranian economy and society, and the Safavid period is scarcely better provided than earlier ages. The Safavid archives were destroyed, the Persian histories provide few hard facts, and the accounts of visiting Europeans, though often full of comment on social and economic matters, are generally unreliable when it comes to quantitative information. Safavid Iran thus presents a depressing contrast to its neighbours to East and West, where the earlier and deeper European penetration has left arich record in the archives of several European countries, while in the case of the Ottoman Empire, the survival of extensive state archives can only remind the historian of Iran of how much was lost through the destruction of their Safavid counterparts.

A brilliant coral ground silk coat with a brocaded silk and silver gilt floral diaper sprig (fig. 1) was acquired in 1982 by the Textile Department of the Royal Ontario Museum (hereafter, “ROM coat“). It has been tentatively dated by the Department to mid-seventeenth - early eighteenth century Iran. There are as well several published garments, generally described as robes and sometimes classified as cadabi (sic.), which are very similar in cut, fabrics and trim to the ROM coat (see Appendix, “Related Robes“; hereafter, “Robes“).

Qalamkār-sāz, or chīt-sāz, is a traditional process of four colour (black, red, yellow and blue) cotton printing involving a combination of mordant stamping as well as painting colour directly onto the fabric. It is still practiced in Iran, particularly in Isfahan, Kashan and Yazd, as well as in India. These textiles have customarily been used for a variety of purposes, including tablecloths, curtains and clothing. This article focuses upon a little-known but ethnographically significant group of qalamkār textiles in the Israel Museum collection.

Today, the term “Ziegler carpet” is synonymous in the trade with a type of late nineteenth century Persian, made-for-export weaving categorized as decorative (figs. 1 - 2). The Ziegler enterprise in Sultanabad (now Arak) was the earliest known effort to organize carpet manufacture in Iran with foreign capital. This Manchester-based firm operated initially as a commission house, representing European manufacturers in the export and sales of printed cottons in the Near and Middle East; they subsequently developed extensive commercial interests in Iran, including investments in opium and other cash crops. Shortly after their first agency was established in Iran in 1867, Ziegler's expanded into the manufacture and trade of Persian carpets; and the company played a significant role the tremendous increase in carpet exports from that country during the late nineteenth century — the so-called Persian carpet “boom”.

In the literature a variety of flatwoven tribal bags are referred to generically as kīsah. In the tribal setting, however, these bags are differentiated according to function, e.g., namakdān, “salt bag“; qāshuqdān, “spoon holder”. This short article introduces three little known types of tribal storage bag: the qāshuqdān; the qalyāndān, “water pipe bag“;and the chupuqdān, “pipe holder”.

A major controversy in textile and carpet studies concerns technical and structural terminology; there are currently several nomenclatures employed. The following glossary refers to specific structural and technical terms presented but not otherwise defined in the text of this volume. It is not intended as a compendium of textile terminology. In this context, techniqueis defined as oneoftheprocesses involved in the actual production of a fabric, e.g., knotting. Structure refers to the relationship of the elements of a finished fabric, e.g., knot count. Bold italicized terms noted inter alia are defined separately under their own entries.