Table of Contents

• CARPETS iv. Knotted-pile carpets: Designs, motifs, and patterns

  Annette Ittig

  In this discussion “design” refers to the overall composition of decorative elements on a carpet; the simplest elements in designs are single motifs, which are most frequently combined in more complex units; these units in turn may be arranged in various combinations and sequences to form patterns.

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• CARPETS v. Flat-woven carpets: Techniques and structures

  Sarah B. Sherrill

  Most of the structures in Persian flat-woven carpets belong to the category called “interlacing” by textile specialists; the term designates the most straightforward way in which each thread of a fabric passes under or over threads that cross its path.

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• CARPETS vi. Pre-Islamic Carpets

  Karen S. Rubinson

  Evidence for textiles of all kinds in pre-Islamic Iran is very sparse. It is necessary to supplement the few remains of actual textiles with examination of representations in art and other kinds of indirect evidence of production, for example preserved impressions and pseudomorphs from excavations.

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• CARPETS vii. Islamic Persia to the Mongols

  Barbara Schimtz

  Because of the scarcity of surviving materials it is difficult to separate the history of carpet making in Iran from that of the rest of the Islamic world before the Mongol invasion (656/1258). Furthermore, the kind of rigid distinction between carpet and other textile designs that characterizes later production probably did not exist in the early Islamic period.

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• CARPETS viii. The Il-khanid and Timurid Periods

  Eleanor Sims

  Persian carpets that can be indisputably identified a having been produced in the 8-9th/14-15th centuries are virtually nonexistent. That carpets were used and produced in Persia  has  been inferred from written sources, both contemporary and slightly earlier. The existence of carpets and weavings from contemporary Anatolia and the Turkman tribal confederations, and possibly also from Egypt and even Spain, also permits the inference.

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• CARPETS ix. Safavid Period

  Daniel Walker

  The high point in Persian carpet design and manufacture was attained under the Safavid dynasty (1501-1739). It was the result of a unique conjunction of historical factors—royal patronage, the influence of court designers at all levels of artistic production, the wide availability of locally produced and imported materials and dyes, and commercial acceptance, particularly in foreign markets.

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• CARPETS x. Afsharid and Zand Periods

  Layla S. Diba

  Although it is probable that magnificent silk-and-brocade rugs in the style of the Safavid court manufactories were no longer produced in significant quantities, it seems reasonable to assume that production of less luxurious wool rugs continued in many traditional centers, even though on a smaller scale and mainly for domestic consumption.

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• CARPETS xi. Qajar Period

  Annette Ittig

  During the Qajar period there were dramatic alterations in the traditional organization and orientation of the Persian carpet industry and, consequently, in Persian carpets themselves. Particularly significant was the substantial increase both in the number of looms and in the volume of carpet exports from the 1870s to World War I.

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• CARPETS xii. Pahlavi Period

  Willem Floor

  Throughout the 14th/20th century carpet manufacturing has been, from the point of view of both employment and domestic and foreign market demand, by far the most important Persian industry after oil refining.

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• CARPETS xiii. Post-Pahlavi Period

  P. R. Ford

  In the period immediately following the shah’s flight from the country in 1358 Š./1979 the prices for Persian carpets reached record highs on Western markets.

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• CARPETS xiv. Tribal Carpets

  Siawosch Azadi

  In Persia rural carpets have been made in nearly every possible technical variation and for a wide range of uses. Yet there are many nomadic groups whose works are absolutely unknown, and the weavings of other groups have been only very imperfectly studied and described. For that reason there are still many objects of which the function is obscure.

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• CARPETS xv. Caucasian Carpets

  Richard E. Wright

  The oldest surviving rugs produced in the Caucasus may be a group with representations of dragons and phoenixes in combat. There is, however, no evidence to permit attribution to the Caucasus. A group of carpets from the 18th century does include patterns and motifs that persisted in subsequent productions; they are predominantly long rugs with bold repeat patterns and have been found primarily in mosques in Turkey.

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• CARPETS xvi. Central Asian Carpets

  Walter Denny

  Central Asian carpets, broadly defined, include those woven by various peoples in what were formerly the Turkmen, Uzbek, Tajik, Karakalpak Autonomous, Kirgiz, and Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republics (Tzareva, pp. 5-6); in extreme northern and northeastern Persia; in Afghanistan; and in the Turkic (Uighur) areas of Sinkiang (Xinjiang) in western China.

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• CARRHAE

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  (Ḥarrān), town in Mesopotamia where in May 53 B.C. a decisive battle was fought between the Parthians commanded by a member of the Sūrēn family and the Romans under the triumvir M. Licinius Crassus.

• CARROT

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  the taproot of Daucus L. subspp., etc. (family Umbelliferae), traditionally called gazar (arabicized as jazar) or zardak (lit. “the little yellow one”), and later also havīj in Persian.

• ČARS

  Cross-Reference

  See BANG.

• CARTER ADMINISTRATION

  Richard W. Cottam

  (1977-81): POLICY TOWARD PERSIA. When the administration of President Jimmy Carter took office in January 1977, United States foreign relations overall were remarkably stable. A modus vivendi had been established with the Soviet Union, and the Soviet-American cold war, the primary source of disturbance of world tranquility, was on what would prove to be a temporary hold.

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• CARUS

  Fridrik Thordarson

  Imperator Caesar MARCUS AURELIUS (Augustus), Roman emperor (r. 282-83).

• ČARZA

  Ehsan Yarshater

  village in the mountainous area of the Upper Ṭārom district (baḵš) in the šahrestān of Zanjān, at 49°1′ E, 36°52′ N, 42 km north of the district center, Sīrdān. It is one of the few villages in Ṭārom where Iranian Tati dialects have not yet given way to Turkish.

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• CASARTELLI, LOIS CHARLES

  Antonio Panaino

  (b. Manchester, 14 November 1852, to a Lombard family settled in England; d. Manchester, 18 January 1925), scholar of ancient Iranian languages and religions and particularly of Pahlavi literature.