A brilliant coral ground silk coat with a brocaded silk and silver gilt floral diaper sprig (fig. 1) was acquired in 1982 by the Textile Department of the Royal Ontario Museum (hereafter, “ROM coat“). It has been tentatively dated by the Department to mid-seventeenth - early eighteenth century Iran. There are as well several published garments, generally described as robes and sometimes classified as cadabi (sic.), which are very similar in cut, fabrics and trim to the ROM coat (see Appendix, “Related Robes“; hereafter, “Robes“).

Qalamkār-sāz, or chīt-sāz, is a traditional process of four colour (black, red, yellow and blue) cotton printing involving a combination of mordant stamping as well as painting colour directly onto the fabric. It is still practiced in Iran, particularly in Isfahan, Kashan and Yazd, as well as in India. These textiles have customarily been used for a variety of purposes, including tablecloths, curtains and clothing. This article focuses upon a little-known but ethnographically significant group of qalamkār textiles in the Israel Museum collection.

Today, the term “Ziegler carpet” is synonymous in the trade with a type of late nineteenth century Persian, made-for-export weaving categorized as decorative (figs. 1 - 2). The Ziegler enterprise in Sultanabad (now Arak) was the earliest known effort to organize carpet manufacture in Iran with foreign capital. This Manchester-based firm operated initially as a commission house, representing European manufacturers in the export and sales of printed cottons in the Near and Middle East; they subsequently developed extensive commercial interests in Iran, including investments in opium and other cash crops. Shortly after their first agency was established in Iran in 1867, Ziegler's expanded into the manufacture and trade of Persian carpets; and the company played a significant role the tremendous increase in carpet exports from that country during the late nineteenth century — the so-called Persian carpet “boom”.

In the literature a variety of flatwoven tribal bags are referred to generically as kīsah. In the tribal setting, however, these bags are differentiated according to function, e.g., namakdān, “salt bag“; qāshuqdān, “spoon holder”. This short article introduces three little known types of tribal storage bag: the qāshuqdān; the qalyāndān, “water pipe bag“;and the chupuqdān, “pipe holder”.

A major controversy in textile and carpet studies concerns technical and structural terminology; there are currently several nomenclatures employed. The following glossary refers to specific structural and technical terms presented but not otherwise defined in the text of this volume. It is not intended as a compendium of textile terminology. In this context, techniqueis defined as oneoftheprocesses involved in the actual production of a fabric, e.g., knotting. Structure refers to the relationship of the elements of a finished fabric, e.g., knot count. Bold italicized terms noted inter alia are defined separately under their own entries.