Gold in Decorative Motif of Qajar Quran: Identifying Golden Color in Five Quran Manuscripts in National Quran Museum

Many literatures have been published about decorative motif and the colors used in these motifs in manuscripts. These studies can be suitable sources for more information about such decorations; still more accurate studies are necessary in the field of identifying the applied pigments in order to have a better understanding of historical objects. The applications of gold in decorative motif of manuscripts is what this study has focused on, in some similar dated works. Many specialists have reported the golden color as gold in catalogs and property IDs and with regard to this point that using gold in historical works and objects of Islamic period was restricted, this question arises whether gold was restricted to be used in Quran manuscripts; or if other materials were used instead. This research aims to study golden color used in Quran manuscripts of Qajar era in order to determine what material has been used in such valuable works.Five samples of golden parts were taken from five gilded and inlayed manuscripts recorded in the List of National Works. These works are being kept in National Museum of Quran. To achieve our purpose we have used Polarized Light Microscopy (PLM) and Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (SEM-EDS). We discovered that gold was used as pigment in golden decorations of our case studies.