Wave Scroll Motif: Trace of Ancient Greek Art in Oriental Rural and Nomadic Carpets

The wave scroll motif is among the designs that, nowadays, are mainly seen in rural and nomadic carpets in a wide geographical area, from Central Asia to Anatolia and the Caucasus, as well as Iran. Historically, this motif originates from Hellenistic art and is still used in oriental carpets today. The purpose of this article is to find out how and the possible time of the arrival of this pattern from Greek art to Iranian carpets using archaeological evidence, including old museum carpets. Using valuable motifs of Sassanian Carpets, this article tracks the transfer of this motif from the Hellenic-Byzantine civilization to the art of pre-Islamic Iran and in various artistic disciplines such as pottery and textiles to clarify this motif’s long journey from pre-Islamic art to the Islamic period. This study shows that the motif was most likely known since the Seleucid period in the Persianate world, but the most evidence of it can be seen in the art of the Parthian and Sasanian periods, furthermore the findings show that this motif was used at least from late Parthian era on the border of hand-made textiles like carpets.