The Study of the Wooden Zarihs during the Al-e-Buya to before the Safavid period in the Markazi Province

Wooden Zarihs are among the most important and prominent wooden products during the Islamic era of Iran, many of which are located in tombs related to Shiites. Currently, there are many samples of these works in different regions and related to different Islamic centuries. So far, many of these chests have been investigated and introduced in various research, such as some wooden Zarihs in Mazandaran province. But in today's Markazi province, despite having a large number of these funds, they have not been discussed in previous studies and research.; At the same time, unfortunately, many of these works have either been destroyed or lost over time. Therefore, it was necessary to investigate and study these funds in an independent and targeted research. According to these interpretations, the main goal of the current research is to investigate and study the wooden Zarihs of Markazi province. The main questions of the present research are also related to the appearance and decorative characteristics of the studied wooden Zarihs and the themes of the inscriptions used in them. Considering that a large number of these chests were identified in the field surveys, which are mainly related to the late Islamic centuries, in the present study, only wooden works before the Safavid period were examined and studied. To achieve this goal, a descriptive-analytical method was used to conduct the current research, and the method of collecting information in it is based on field and library studies. Based on this, at first, the works in all the tombs of Markazi province were identified and documented. Then, by referring to the old records of the registration file in some historical monuments and some ancient documents, a number of wooden Zarihs, which are not found today, were also identified and examined. By conducting the present research, nine wooden Zarihs were identified, which according to the comparative studies, date from the 10th century to the beginning of the 16th century AD. The most important wooden Zarihs identified are located in Haftad-o-do-tan Saroq Imamzadegan building. Various decorative methods are used in these boxes, which are comparable to the wooden works of other regions. Among other things, they have many similarities with examples in some regions such as Kashan city, Mazandaran province and Ardabil province. In addition, sometimes artists from other regions of the province, such as Soltanieh city and Josheghan city, participated in their construction. The inscriptions used in these works mainly include some verses of the Quran, some Persian religious poems, the introduction of the owner of the grave and the date of the creation of the work. It should be noted that the use of Persian poems was identified for the first time in these works from the 15th century onwards. However, unlike the examples of the Safavid period, the use of slogans of the Shiite religion was not popular in these works. In the end, it should be mentioned that in the inscriptions used in these works, only the Kufic, Thulth and Naskh scripts were used and no evidence of other Islamic scripts was identified. Unfortunately, the name of any calligraphy artist was not identified in the studied inscriptions.