A Contemplation on Ritual Landscape Representations in Kerman Province

Ritual landscapes are the result of social interaction with the surrounding environment and retell the cultural aspects of societies in various concepts like believes, faiths and religions. The religion as a cultural component is between the recognition factors human groups and is considered as an important factor in the formation of Iranian cities and their social life. Holding religious ceremonies has resulted in the addition of semantic dimension to the space framework and has created the superposition of two objective and subjective aspects resulted from this interaction of ritual landscapes. Therefore, the ritual landscape is an important factor in the recognition and perception of Iranian cities landscape and this problem clarifies the necessity of dealing with ritual landscapes in the recognition of the cities landscape. Mythical and naturalistic beliefs has been accompanied with the formation of a close relationship between the ritual landscapes and natural elements. The formation of exclusive naturalism concept, in the form of water companion, sacred tree and place has been considered in ritual landscapes and this pattern has continued in the way of Iranians world-view. The holding form of the religious ceremonies as the actions aroused from common beliefs, has given the ritual landscapes a social nature, in such a way that some operational spaces have converted to public spaces by accepting the conceptual aspect aroused from religions and the social dimension has been flourished in these landscapes in the form of outing-pilgrimage tradition. In Kerman province ritual landscapes, beside the continuation of conceptual and social dimensions, has resulted in the formation of physical and conceptual turning points. This writing is formed by the question of why and quiddity of the religions effectiveness and ritual landscapes on the perception of the formed landscape and investigate the various specifications of ritual landscapes and its appearance in cities and villages of Kerman province. naturalism and pluralism of the ritual landscape have affected the Iranians interaction with their surrounding environment in the form of physical pattern and common meaning. The affecting type and state in ritual landscapes in Kerman province is observed in the format of turning point and different performances that sometimes is seen in the shape of independent spaces in the natural context and sometimes in the context of cities and villages and in close relation with other spaces, and anyway, affects the perception and recognition of landscape.