Study and Analysis of the Concepts in Boxed Tombstone Cravings in Astan Quds Razavi Museum

Death is a vital necessity and an undeniable phenomenon. Death is a concept in contrast with life and inevitable. Confrontation with death has a lifespan as old as humanity itself. Humanity's constant confrontation with death has made man make peace with its inevitability. Therefore, the desire to know more about the phenomenon of death has been one of human’s oldest pastimes. The way of dealing with this process has different patterns in different cultures and traditions. But since mankind have always been looking for a way to commend the deceased, monuments and tombs have been one of the most obvious ways of showing and symbolizing the deceased person, and tombstones are important in this process. The construction of tombs has long been important for honoring the status of the dead, so that in the ancient times of Iran we come across tombs and graves that show us the traditions of the past regarding the deceased. After Islam, according to the Islamic tradition, the deceased is buried in the soil during a ceremony. In line with historical eras, tombs were structurally influenced and conformed to the various cultural factors of each era and changes in rituals and beliefs.In Islamic Iran, tomb buildings became prevalent from the 4th century A.H. and the construction of tombs for important people became popular and gradually widespread, and as evidenced by history, since then the tombs of the elders and important figures always continued to be significant during following eras. Tombs are a place to display history, art, culture and even philosophy and life style of the people of a society. The common feature of tombs and mausoleums, either for important figures or ordinary people, is the existence of a tombstone that is designed with special specifications. By observing the graves and studying them and the concepts, themes and motifs of their carvings, beliefs, history of the people of a region, and even their art can be understood. Inscriptions, names, decorations and forms are the factors that give life to the stone, and become guides and take us somewhere in-between existence and non-existence; where there is no name, but only commemoration. Patterns that are a testament to the art history of Iranian civilization and their main source are mystical in nature.The history of using tombstones in Iran dates back to Islam. Although there is no sign and proof of the onset of placing the stone on the grave of the deceased, it can be said that the way of burial and marking the grave (stone) after forty days in Shia jurisprudence can be the beginning of this tradition. By the passage of time the tombstones, like other works of the Islamic period, were decorated by symbols that implied many characteristics, ranging from the introduction of the deceased to the historical period and identity signs. The application of a boxed tombstones on the grave of the deceased does not have a precise and specific date, but their first well known examples can be found in the Timurid period. Tombstones in various types and special styles, which are rooted in the religious foundations of the Islamic periods, are used in all cemeteries and are considered an important feature of the cemetery. Engraved motifs in the Islamic period can be seen in various parts of religious texts, one example of which is tombstones engraved with plant themes, ethnic beliefs, pure sculptural forms and inscriptions with various forms of calligraphy.Since far past, ever since the burial of the holy body of the 8th Imam of Shiites, Imam Reza’s (pbuh) holy shrine has been the focus of attention of various groups of people, and many people, in their wills, requested to be buried next to the shrine of this noble Imam. Also with the development of the Holy Shrine for the welfare of pilgrims and the growing trend of urbanization, a number of tombstones around the Holy Shrine were transferred to the Astan Quds Razavi Museum. Astan Quds Razavi has a great treasure of art works, many of which have not yet been introduced to researchers. The tombstones preserved in this large collection are among the works that are considered significant, due to the reading of their themes and the study of their motifs. This research intends to study the symbolic concepts of this type of tombstones with various decorations and examine their form and content. The tombstones of the Astan Quds Razavi Museum include the Timurid and Safavid periods. About 15 tombstones are on display in this museum. In this research, 7 samples of tombstones from the tombs of Mahfouz in Astan Quds Razavi Museum have been studied. Two of them have recently been found in the excavations of the Holy Shrine of Razavi and are introduced for the first time in this study. They belong to Khanka Bibi, the daughter of Amir Afzaluddin Mohammad Al Mousavi and Goharshad Khatun, the daughter of Sultan Farrokh Yasar.The purpose of this research is to study the structure, inscriptions and motifs carved on the tombstones. The question of this research is what concepts do the inscriptions and decorative motifs of the box tombstones of Astan Quds Razavi Museum refer to?The research method is based on analytical and descriptive method, and data collection is conducted via field studies and documents and library resources in parallel. The statistical population of the research includes 7 examples of tombstones in Astan Quds Razavi Museum, which have the maximum amount of information and the minimum percentage of degradation.The results of the research show that the decorations of the studied tombstones were decorated with inscriptions, geometric designs, Mihrabi and Moqransi motifs with carvings of plant foliage such as lotus flower and Eslimi designs. The texts engraved on the tombstones include verses of the Quran, prayers, names of God, poems, and also the details of the deceased, which can be seen on the body of the tombstone. What can be said concerning the selected tombstones is that two types of inscriptions and motifs can be detected on them. In addition to introducing the deceased with prayers, the verses of the Quran and the names of the Innocents, the inscriptions reflect the whole view of the religious beliefs of the people of that era, who fully understood the relationship between the form and the meaning of the motifs. Especially mentioning the name of Hazrat Ali due to the recognition of the Shia as the official religion of Iran during the Safavid era is one of the noteworthy cases. These inscriptions are engraved on the top most part, body and the margins of the tombstone. The type of writing style in the inscriptions is of significan importance in the work of artists on tombstones. In the selected examples, the Kufic script of Banai, Naskh, and Tholut have been used. In transforming the shape of tombstones from cradle to boxed, the altar-shaped design at the top of the box is quite clear a replacement for the upper prominent part of the cradle tombstone. The design of the altar contains decorations such as inscriptions and motifs. In connection with the motifs, the use of geometric, Eslimi and Moqrans motifs is prominent. Geometric motifs are used along with plant motifs and inscriptions, among which circle is one of the most widely used shapes. These motifs are formed by regular repetition and reproduction of a pattern in all directions of the shape to fill the entire surface and the empty space between the shapes. These geometric motifs can also be seen in the form of decorative flowers, the varieties of which are four-petal, eight-petal, and lotus flowers. Sometimes these flowers are centrally located in the upper frame, or they connect a series of surrounding inscriptions as a chain, or they are carved to fill empty spaces. The juxtaposition of these motifs and inscriptions shows symbolic meanings. Also, in the four corners of some tombstones,  column-shaped designs can be seen that have a decorative purpose and hold a Muqrans design at their upper part which creates a sense of balance. These carved capitals on the four sides of the stone create balance and symmetry between the elements and motifs used in the stone. Eslimi plant motifs and spiral movements and their continuous repetition evoke the multiplicity in unity and the immortality of the world with continuous birth.