Investigating and Studying the Array of Gravestones in the Historical Cemeteries of Mahabad

The decorative motifs of gravestones reflect cultural, social and religious conditions, which are manifested in the form of different motifs. Studying the visible and hidden qualities of historical cemeteries is very important to understand the worlds and relationships governing past societies. In this research, which was carried out using the field and library data collection methods and written using descriptive-analytical method, the motifs and arrays on the tombstones of the historical cemeteries of Mahabad city were described, classified, designed, documented, and analyzed. The aim of this article is to understand the importance, and political, social and religious status of the city of Mahabad during the Islamic period by relying on written sources and archaeological evidence, including historical cemeteries. So far, no targeted archaeological survey has been conducted to identify and study the material that introduces these works. As a result, the study of the historical cemeteries of this region could depict the importance of this type of works in the archaeological studies of the Islamic period in Mahabad city and especially in Mukuriyan Kurdistan. The tombstones of the historical cemeteries of Mahabad as an example in the form of a statistical community, are comparable in terms of time and morphology with the tombstones of Mukuriyan Kurdistan and other regions of Iran, including Ardabil and Luristan. In this article, we try to answer these questions: Who were the prominent people buried in these cemeteries? And, what role or position did they play in the history of this region? And in the study of the literary inscriptions and the rich engravings of the tombstones of Mahabad cemeteries, in terms of the variety and quality of the works, what important cultural and social results of their era do they tell? The findings of the research indicate that most of the historical tombstones in Mahabad belonged to people with a high social status in the Mukuriyan region.