نشریه مطالعات اسناد میراث فرهنگی
سال سوم شماره 1 (پیاپی 3، بهار و تابستان 1399)

In the last hundred years, the city of Tehran has changed so much as a result of which many urban spaces and historical structures have disappeared, especially in the citadel of Tehran (Arg-e Tehran). Buildings such as Dar ul-Funun, from which the country’s educational and research facilities have taken root, have changed so much that their original architectural identity has been tarnished. While in recent years, there has been attempts to revive the main core of Tehran, lack of documents and written and oral data are felt, now more than ever. One of these required documents is historical photographs, many of which are scattered in the archives of museums and governmental and non-governmental centers, often without proper classification or photographic captions. Fortunately, during the last years of Nasser al-Din Shah’s and the early years of Mozaffar al-Din Shah’s (of Qajar dynasty) reign, Dmitri E. Yermakov, a famous Tbilisi photographer who specialized in photography of historical structures and textures, and was a member of the Russian Academy of Archeology and Fine Arts, moved to Tehran and took pictures of urban texture, historical buildings and other subjects. These photos all have captions, most of which are kept at the National Museum of Georgia. These photos can be used to identify the state of urbanization and to revive the historical texture of Tehran. This article, aimed to study these photographs using historical archeology methods.

Amir Timur Gorkani (1336- 1405 AD), using Islamic law, established a government in which the progress of some Islamic traditions was provided. During this period, lots of efforts were done in terms of charity, especially waqf (charitable endowment). Appealing documents belonging to this period have remained. Historical sources with a description of the Mawqūfat of Timur have introduced him as one of the great people in terms of waqf. It seems there is no document showing him founding a waqf. Studying some historical documents, the main purpose of this research is to analyze the structure and content of the documents related to Amir Timur Gorkani›s endowments. In addition to using library and digital resources, this paper used the manuscript of Sarih al-Mulk kept in National Museum of Iran and Monsha’at of Abd al-Mu›min Munshi Samarqandi, kept in library of the Islamic Consultative Assembly. This was a descriptive-analytical research and its findings showed that although no documentary (paper) was found showing Amir Timur Gorkani’s endowments, but by examining parts of Monsha’at of Samarqandi, data can be found about his Mawqūfat in Dār al Siada of Kash. Accordingly, it can be seen that Amir Timur sought to achieve political goals, including the domination of the Islamic world, by virtue of Islamic teachings, including endowment and promotion of them, as well as the respect and praise of the Imams, Sadat and Mashayekh.

For archaeologists, historical texts are important in several ways; first, the written texts and second its examination in an archaeological context, along with other material of its context. In fact, the importance of the context is that the cultural material (here the text) is evaluated based on its social and historical context. Historical texts along with other facts, are important evidence to archaeologists. In the slave system of Qajar-era, servants were primarily a form of consumption and not an element of production.  A group of servants who served in the houses of the wealthy, included maids, gholams, and Khawjas. The black slaves were African, and they were traded through the Persian Gulf, and the white ones were of various ethnicities who were provided through trade or captivity in wars. The way this class was treated was often accepted by the community. The maids either entered the harem as a monk or a permanent wife, or to do housework for the elders' wives. The gholams were also employed in various fields of the military, domestic services, security, agriculture and irrigation, fishing and scuba diving (in the south), and achieved high administrative and military positions if they had the ability and expertise. Therefore, in this article, the Qajar slavery system, in two areas of south and southwest of Iran, were investigated by studying documents, written sources, and photographs of the Qajar period as text and cultural material through archeological approach and content analysis.

Mulla Khezr Roudbari, (1725-1790 AD) is the great and famous HawramanHawramani scholar, poet, lecturer, and writer, and also a distinguished student of Allamah Sheikh Wasim (the first) Takhti Mardookhi; he has many works in Arabic and Kurdish literature. Though this study has used the name Mulla Khedr Ravāri since this is how he is known among the Kurds. There has been left a manuscript written by him, which is worthy of historical, literary and legal value. This document is originally a purchase contract between Sobhan Verdi Baig and Mohammad Yusef Sultan, who were from the sultans and illustrious of Hawraman during the Afsharid and Zand periods. The subject of the transaction is the sale of the lands of “Melavaz” and “Kerava” by Sobhan Verdi Baig to Mohammad Yusef Sultan Hawrami; the sales was done under supervision of Mulla Khezr Ravāri having the approval of elder people of Hawraman and Kurdistan. This document is historically and literally worthwhile, as it was written and signed by one of the great scholars of the Kurdistan province and sheds light to some parts of the history of the region. This document was written in 1785 AD (five years before the death of Mulla Khezr Ravāri) and coincided with the era of Khosrokhan Ardalan, and his victory over Ja’far Khan Zand (1785 AD). In this study, along with the report of the main document, the name of the famous people and the declaration of jurisprudential and legal texts and terms are described and explained.

The altar stone is an important factor in the stone industry of the late 5th and 6th centuries. As the motifs and figures of great altars belonging to these periods are reflected in smaller and finer dimensions of altar stones, they are of great importance. During the Saljuq period, stones of the altars became so important that many of the artists who engraved tombstones in this period were attracted to the altar designs and created beautiful tombstones, some of which are now in museums. The altar stone of the Atigh Jame’ Mosque is different regarding its form, dimensions and decorations.  The altar stone of Khoday Khane is amongst the altar stones of the mosque in the late fifth and early sixth centuries, and the altar stone transferred to Vakil Mosque belongs to the sixth century in terms of the Kufic scripts and type of decoration. The decoration and scripts of the altar transferred to the Stone (Haft-Tanan) Museum assures it belonging to 8th century. There is no information about the location of this altar stone in the past, but with the modernization of the three altar mosques in southwest, southeast and northeast Shabestans in the last century, it is likely that these stones belong to three Shabestans.

Having great visual characteristics, the Kufic script has become one of the special aspects of inscriptions. Learning the illustrative capabilities of calligraphy in Iran and considering the graphic principles, give designers interesting ideas. Like other visual elements in the graphic arts, it plays a variety of roles and can be the main element of the work; it either penetrates into the image and creates a single entity, or is seen as a surface of a collection and homogeneous elements along with other levels. It can also interfere with information and express it, or at least fill the vacancies. The letters of the alphabet are a set of visual cues, and they are best illustrated when the relationship between the form and the content is perfect. From the Kufic inscriptions used as brick decoration in architecture, two inscriptions were chosen that have the same phrase and were written in the same historical period (Segunbad tower in Urmia and Mehmandūst tower in Damghan); both will be studied regarding their form and quality. The question is what the calligraphers or designers of these inscriptions have done, while writing a common term and given the adherence to the simple Kufic script, to create a unique form? The assumption of the article is that, despite the same pattern in all samples, using a simple Kufic script, the calligrapher has created different types of design of letters in his work. As a result, according to the sample and the form of speech, it seems that the designers of these samples have considered the letters as forms to design.