Studying the Concepts of Ibex's Motif on Kermanshah’s Felts

Glancing through the works and the images inherited from the past civilizations in Iran، we will find out that ibexes have always been valuable animals among Iranians. Not only because they provide human with a good source of food and clothing، but also since they had always special sanctity among Iranians as a symbol for making wishes، praying for water، productivity، fertility as well as protective angel. That is why its images have been used in a variety of ways such as images used on potteries، mental works، stamps، cave paintings and hand-woven works in people’s lives throughout history. Ibex’s motif is one of the most important images used in Kermanshah’s felts. This ancient motif is considered as the main characteristic of this area’s felts and makes it different from other felts. In this paper، the authors have conducted a study on the ibex’s motif on Kermanshah’s felts to answer that questions that «What are the types of this motinf on the mentiond felts?» and «What are their concepts?» The main purpose of this paper is to conduct a study on the concepts of ibex’s motif in the Kermanshah’s felts and provide a typology of this motif on Kermanshah’s felts. A descriptive-analytic approach and field study-library based data collection were the research methods used in the present study. The most important result obtained from this study is that the Ibex’s motifs on Kermanshah’s felts have a deep relationship with the notions of water and the tree-of-life، because of the semantic relationships of them in mythology.