Review and Cognition of Animal Patterns on Earthenware?s of Naishabaur (Third and Fourth Centuries

Patterns in pottery art contain some concepts and themes which represent the world view of human communities; the patterns designed on the earthenware represent the heritage in which they are created. The fallowing paper surveys and analyses the animal patterns on Naishabours earthenware during the Samanid dynasty which are considered to be some of the most beautiful and the most mysterious Islamic earthenware patterns.
The present paper aims to understand their concepts and themes and determine the factors which effect the choice of selecting those animals’ patterns for the earthenware of the mentioned eras. It should be mentioned that different theories have been presented about these patterns in Islamic pottery art, although most of them have not presented reasonable and documented proofs. It is obvious that the information extracted from Samanid Era samples which have been used in Naishabour’s pottery can open the way to clear up ambiguities in a large extent and create a deeper understanding of animal patterns on this earthenware. Therefore, we try to discuss and analyze different conceptual, thematic and symbolic dimensions of the mentioned patterns based on existing documents. The research method is descriptive analysis which is based on library study. Based on the most important findings of this paper, we cannot determine a single factor as the only reason of designing the animal patterns on the Naishabour’s earthenware, but a set of factors and known and unknown sources were involved in their design. Among the most important known sources are, prevailing and prosperity of Iranian literature and culture in Samanid era, the interest of Samanid dynasty to ancient Iranians culture, art and myth and inventions of earthenware designers. The data has been collected from library sources, written documents, pictures and electronic sources