از طرفِ
شهریار حنیفه

Some time ago, “Fānus-e Xiyāl, an Étude by Shahriar Hanife“, was screened as part of an independent cultural and artistic programme at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), Switzerland. Following the screening, at the kind invitation of the event organisers, a conversation with me took place. You can read the transcript below.
Since the conversation involved more than one person, I have used the term “Interviewer” throughout the text to refer to the other side of the conversation. I hope you enjoy reading it.

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Interviewer: Greetings and respectful regards. I am very pleased that we have this opportunity to speak with you about your film, Fānus-e Xiyāl, an Étude by Shahriar Hanife, and the ideas and concerns that informed its making.
First of all, I’d like to thank you, on behalf of myself and everyone on our team, for accepting our invitation and taking the time for this conversation. For us, this is also a valuable opportunity, beyond simply watching the film, to get to know the filmmaker’s perspective and experience, and to hear them talk about how the film came into being.
To begin, I would like to read the full text of your film’s credits to everyone present:

This Wheel of Fate where we are perplexed,
A Fānus-e Xiyāl, its likeness we’ve accepted,
The Sun the flame, the Cosmos its lantern,
We are but figures that merely within it turn.
Umar Khayyām of Nīshāpūr

The Fānus-e Xiyāl was a contraption from nowhere, which, by harnessing the light of a candle and the kinetic power of thermal energy, would cast moving shadows upon the lantern’s screen for the spectators. Certainly, it had various forms, and every lover imbued it with the color of their own era and world; Persian written records confirm the existence of this storytelling apparatus at least around the 11th century CE.
My étude of late, inspired by the idea of the Fānus-e Xiyāl, is chiefly drawn from a contraption entitled “ Fānus-e Xiyāl or the Glass of the Thirty-Two Skilled Artisan ”. A contraption which, around the 14th century CE, was unveiled at a festive gathering of Abū Saʿīd Gūrkānī, and Khwāndamīr, the historian, recounts it in his book Habīb al-Siyar in this manner — and only to this extent:
The peasants and farmers, at the command of the Sultan, began erecting the chahartāq in Zāghān Garden. They adorned that paradise-adorned pavilion with lofty domes and elevated eyvāns, embellished with Roman silk and Chinese gold brocade, and each group, in accordance with their profession, devised novel and inventive compositions, offering the finest of their artistry as a tribute to him. That year, the engineers of the world were present at the royal court of Khorāsān, and all, with the strength of mind and precision of temperament, manifested marvelous works. Among them, Khvājeh Alī Ardehgar Esfahānī brought into view, within a glass, the Fānus-e Xiyāl or the Glass of the Thirty-Two Skilled Artisans, as if thirty-two workshops and factories had been opened, each craftsman engaged in the task specific to him; and some of those figures, which in the craft required motion—such as the tailor, weaver, carpenter, and blacksmith—had their movements meticulously depicted with the stroke of the pen, so that in the mirror of imagination no image of them appeared more beautiful.

Well, as a first question, I’d like to ask about the starting point of the project. What made you decide to make a film like this? In particular, the idea of ekphrasis is usually not particularly easy for artists, because in this process, the artist’s own role and presence in the work may become less prominent. What was it about this idea that appealed to you and made you decide to pursue it?

S.H: Hello, thank you for your invitation, I hope it’ll be a good conversation. To start, I have to acknowledge that my role and image in relation to Fānus-e Xiyāl is really quite faint!
It was about 7-8 years ago that I read a text in the book Habīb al-Siyar; the same text that’s at the beginning of the film’s credits. Well, the text really drew me in… it made me research more about it and gradually I realized that information about this magical object is even less than little. Everything was so unclear, ambiguous and distant that I decided to make it! That dream-like ambiguity that exists in the story of Fānus-e Xiyāl and its historical existence, and of which only unclear words in poems and stories remain, tempted me to think to myself: I too can add some of my own unclear and imaginative words to it.

Interviewer: Would you say that if Fānus-e Xiyāl had had a completely clear and well-known existence from the beginning, and there had been fewer ambiguities about it, it probably wouldn’t have seemed so tempting to you and you wouldn’t have gone toward making it?

S.H: Definitely its tempting quality would have been reduced! We’re talking about something that’s already complete… In Persian, “kāmel” (complete) has a semantic connection with “kamāl” (perfection / completeness). The kind of work I’m interested in is wandering around in unfamiliar worlds. Because I don’t know the environment, because it’s not complete and fixed in my mind, I can freely change direction, I can doubt myself… and I like that.

Interviewer: I see… This kind of encounter with the work comes close to a tradition in experimental cinema in which the filmmaker, instead of mapping out a clear narrative and dramaturgical path, puts himself in the face of unforeseen possibilities. A kind of suspension in relation to path and destination; the filmmaker not only doesn’t want to determine all the coordinates of the work’s world in advance, but also brings the audience into a territory whose rules and direction of movement are not necessarily known. In such an approach, disorientation is not merely a state, but can be part of the film’s aesthetic experience.

S.H: It might even be that the artist lets go of the audience’s hand in the middle of this unfamiliar path. And then the two of them get lost together!

Interviewer: Yes, that’s right… So because this one seemed very untouched and ambiguous to you, you decided to go ahead and make it. One question: Had you also come across similar examples of this object in other cultures and geographies? Or perhaps slightly different ones, it doesn’t really matter that much…

S.H: About similar examples in the world… the truth is I haven’t come across anything. Umm… look, there’s an issue we have to take into account: what are these devices actually? Today they’re called pre-cinematic devices, though I don’t agree with that naming. Devices that turn stillness into movement, in a creative way of course; transforming one image into a second image in such a way that the previous meaning of the first image is also overshadowed. And that itself can be the beginning of storytelling. In Forster’s terms, “Not the king died, the queen died,” but “Since the king died, the queen died too.”… Werner Nekes has a documentary series about these devices that if you haven’t seen it, you really should; it’s truly worth watching.
For example, one of the models of these pre-cinematic devices, which we encounter much more today in children’s books, are books with pages that fold from different parts, say the top or the bottom, and with each fold the narrative changes. For instance you fold the lower part of the page and the same previous characters enter a new space. Or you pull a tab in the corner of the page and suddenly the king character inside the image becomes naked! Somewhere I had read that the historical name of this kind of paper play was Harlequinades; of course Harlequinade is also the name of a theatrical genre in English theatre and I don’t know whether the two are really related or not. Maybe my source of study was mistaken.
The important point is that these devices were usually in the possession of the aristocracy and the wealthy. Anyone might have a collection of a few toys, cards, paintings or some kind of handicraft and show them to others at parties. These objects were extremely expensive, special and often unique; that is, the maker would produce only one example of a device so that the object would remain unique. Or at most two examples were made so that they would form a pair. This pairing also exists in Persian carpets and has interesting stories, but the important thing was that most of the time they never reached a third copy. As a result, we’re talking about limited objects that were extremely expensive! On the other hand, because the place of their appearance and display was private circles and not public space, today finding the history of their making and their developments is really difficult. Exactly in what year and in which geography they took shape, or what evolutionary process they went through, is not easily determinable. We know that their prevalence was in the nineteenth century and that’s all.
Now, taking these preliminaries into account, let me return to your question again. In the texts I examined, I came across no example older than Fānus-e Xiyāl. And the truth of the matter is that even if we leave other objects aside and focus only on Fānus-e Xiyāl, we have to admit that when Khayyām, the great Iranian poet and astronomer, speaks of the Fānus-e Xiyāl in his poetry, we don’t know what form the lantern in Khayyām’s mind had, what features it possessed, or even in which geographical area it had been seen! In any case the domain of the Persian language is extremely vast; it’s the size of a continent, really!

Interviewer: Given that Fānus-e Xiyāl is so ambiguous in historical sources, and that even the existing descriptions don’t necessarily offer a consistent picture of it, how did you arrive at a specific form for this contraption during the making process?

S.H: The answer to this question is very distant for me… I said the idea goes back 7–8 years; what I remember is that I just wanted to bring cinema inside a lantern. And I remember that early on I didn’t even intend to build that same contraption by Khvājeh Alī Ardehgar Esfahānī… Umm… The decisions that led to a more specific conception took place in the last 4–5 years, and my reason is the purchase date of one of my books, about toys in Iran, which dates back 4–5 years, which counts as a sign for me personally. But I really don’t remember the course of even these 4–5 years well. In these 4–5 years I’ve made a few other films too, and my mind is very crowded!

Interviewer: How did the course of your research on occupations go? When you were going to place the theatrical atmosphere-building of this contraption in a specific historical context, what challenges did you face?

S.H: The main challenge was the shortage of data. I had visual challenges too, of course, like choosing occupations that all take up the same amount of geometric space, have varied movement patterns while maintaining simplicity and amateurism, match graphically with the ones before and after them, don’t repeat two similar movement patterns back to back, and feature people of different ages, different geographies, different genders, and so on. But well… these were the challenges, and the data-shortage challenge was a bigger mountain that I had to conquer. We don’t have specific, reference books in Iran in the particular field of occupations, or even urban data. For example, we don’t have a book titled “The History of Occupations in the Khwarazmian Era” or “A Review of Urbanization in the Afsharid Era”! The path of research was uneven and so tiring that at some point I came to the conclusion that I should no longer proceed in a focused way. I told myself: carry on your miscellaneous historical studies as always, and if you happen to come across any information, take notes. On the other hand, my wife and I also had trips to different parts of Iran, during which, well, we always try to visit historical buildings and museums, and… umm… photographing objects and historical documents, talking with people, and so on, each one, piece by piece, added something to this research.
The major part of the energy I consumed was spent on research about occupations; in other words, on getting to know the world a shadow of which was supposed to emerge in the lantern.

Interviewer: That being the case, despite 4–5 years of research, you still didn’t find much visual data for each occupation? That’s a long time. In my opinion, the images could have been made more crowded so the occupations would be more clearly recognizable; for us, recognizing some occupations was truly impossible! For example, for an occupation like carpentry, more tools and equipment could have been added to the image.

S.H: Look, I’m sure that for many of the tools we know today for occupations, the documentation goes back, at best, to 200 years ago. It’s very hard to say with certainty that the tools we know, even if old, were exactly these same ones, in this same form, 600 years ago too. Of course, some occupations are exceptions; for example, in carpentry, which you gave as an example, the hammer of three thousand years ago probably wasn’t much different from today’s hammer either. But the issue is that I have to see all these occupations alongside one another, and I can’t generalize the approach of the exceptions, like the carpenter and the apothecary, to all of them. We can’t have six tools for one occupation and only one tool for another. This imbalance can throw off the whole chain.
Everyone works in a chain. In fact, one of my initial ideas was to show the occupations in continuation of one another; I thought of the workshops being connected like the workshops of a bazaar, such that the components of each workshop would connect to the next workshop, and in the end, the film would move frame by frame before the eyes like an old strip of film, that is, a Filmstrip. Similar to the camera doing a Pan in an Iranian bazaar. Of course, after a few experiments this idea met with failure, and its result wasn’t satisfying for me. In the end, I decided to show the occupations one by one and have the people fade into one another, and for me that would turn into a kind of interconnectedness. So for each occupation, I had to choose a few examples from among the tools and spaces I had visual information about, so that this interconnectedness would be maintained as far as possible; elements that, in the first place, show the main function of that occupation and tell the audience what profession they’re facing. Now, if that element also had a specific historical feature, so much the better. And if it also had harmony with the others in dimensions and shapes, so much the better.

Interviewer: As for the lantern itself, I took it that its mechanism works on the energy of the Fānus-e Xiyāl’s flame; did I understand correctly? I wanted to know how you designed and executed this part.

S.H: Our information about the original contraption is truly meager. And the truth is, I’m not such a prominent scientific figure that I could explain the scientific methods with certainty! But in my opinion too, the general mechanism was that thermal energy was being converted into mechanical energy in some way. Exactly through what path and by what mechanism isn’t clear; but probably heat, or perhaps the transfer of energy between hot and cold air, caused something like a turbine to rotate and in the end produced the movement.
I think it’s probable that there were two standing supports that acted as rotating axes; fireproof papers were looped around one of them, and the rotation of this axis, with the help of thermal energy, would cause the paper to gradually unroll. The second axis, from the other side, would pull the paper toward itself; in fact, the paper would unroll from one axis and loop around the other axis.
Given the research I had on pre-cinematic devices in different parts of the world, my strong guess, considering that this invention goes back to around the fourteenth century CE, is that we were dealing with a kind of Barrier-grid animation. In this method, the illusion of movement of each image is created with the help of opaque, fixed strips that were placed inside the lantern, in front of the main paper roll. These strips caused parts of the image to be hidden behind the black lines, and with the gradual movement of the image, the illusion of movement came about. They still use this same technique in making some postcards.
If the method of creating the illusion of movement in Khvājeh Alī Ardehgar Esfahānī’s Fānus-e Xiyāl was built on this same basis, the movement was probably limited to only two phases. And the speed of the paper roll’s movement, as well as the speed of the image’s transition from the first act of the person inside the image to their second act, definitely must have been very low; because the energy produced in the lantern was limited, and an excessive increase in heat could also have damaged the lantern itself.

Interviewer: Yes, I’m familiar with this technique. Of course, if we look at the image outside the exact angle or position of the intermediate layer, we might see parts of the image that normally remain hidden; as if there’s an extra image layer or phase as well. You also raised an interesting point about the idea of using fireproof paper. But the text mentions glass too. If glass was really used, could the display mechanism have been different? For example, instead of opaque strips, might transparent sections or pieces of glass have been used that combined with one another and completed the frames of the image?

S.H: The movement of pieces of glass over one another, without interfering lines, can create the illusion of movement. But there are a few points. First, glass is very heavy; especially when 32 images, along with their workshops and tools, are supposed to move and pass before the eyes. The lantern’s heat couldn’t have set such a weight and volume of glass in motion. In that case, the lantern would have had to be the size of a room and would have produced heat that practically no one could have gotten close to!
The second point is that the oldest examples I know of the use of glass in such mechanisms go back to about three hundred years after the festive gathering of Abū Saʿīd Gūrkānī; examples that are seen in the études of Pieter van Musschenbroek. What’s more, those too were built in much smaller dimensions. Therefore, I find it unlikely that at that time, the technology of using glass at such dimensions and in such a mechanism existed. My guess is that the glass mentioned in the text had merely a protective role; that is, it was a glass covering around the lantern so that no one would touch the papers. In fact, behind this protective layer, those same very thin, fireproof papers were placed.

Interviewer: In the lantern you built, lines can be seen behind the painted images that shift at the same time as the images move. Given that it seems you didn’t use the Barrier-grid animation mechanism, and the speed of the images’ movement is also relatively high, I’m curious to know what technique you used to create this illusion of movement. What exactly is the role of these lines in the lantern’s visual mechanism? Are they considered part of the image itself, or an independent element that helps the movement of the other parts?

S.H: The truth is, I used the technique of deception! That lantern is entirely computerized!

Interviewer: Really… how unexpected… But why? At the beginning of your talk, you said that you were drawn to the idea of building Fānus-e Xiyāl and that it was tempting for you!

S.H: The truth is, part of this excitement was discharged over these years, with the physical études I was doing. Umm… you know, when an idea grows and reaches maturity, you can’t expect that it will necessarily remain faithful to its initial concept. Of course, maybe it will; but you have to look at it well and see how it can manifest in the best possible way. My work, in my own mind, was supposed to turn into a film; into cinema! And not merely the display of a performative object.

Interviewer: So, in fact, the issue for you was that the initial idea should go beyond the format of a physical object and become a work that makes use of the expressive possibilities of cinema; as if it becomes something that only cinema can create? Right?

S.H: To some extent, yes. If I was only going to build the lantern and show it, would I have made a film? This way, from the audience’s point of view, I’m someone who just pressed the Record button! I didn’t want to have the role of the lantern’s builder; I wanted to be a filmmaker. What matters to me is how the audience, after seeing the work, would speak of it: would they say “I saw a lantern with these features” or “I saw a film with these features in which a lantern with these specifications also existed”? These two are completely different experiences.
The low speed of movement of the designs of the physical lantern, the black lines, and even the dimensions that the lantern itself would take on, none of them fit with the formal sensitivity I had in mind. So I had to build it computerized. It was a hard decision… but well, hard decisions are part of life.

Interviewer: Couldn’t you increase the speed of the physical lantern in the film, or somehow remove the opaque strips?

S.H: Well, that way the real lantern would be a living witness that, from a corner of my room, kept telling me with its eyes, “I know the truth!” But now there’s no witness. My nerves are calmer too.

Interviewer: I can say, with caution, that I understand what point you’re trying to convey. For you, the film itself was an independent medium, not merely a way of recording and documenting Fānus-e Xiyāl. Even through simple movements, though, you tried to draw a boundary between these two. We too raise this a lot in our meetings: that an artist can always, with simple actions, bring about big changes in the nature of the work they’ve created. With a simple turn of the camera, or small changes…

S.H: This is the artistic characteristic of our era that distinguishes us from the artists of the past. We are simpler, we’re not as great as they were, but we can disseminate another kind of knowledge; knowledge that is the product of access to datasets, easier travel and transportation, translation, the internet, greater public wealth,… We have to use these possibilities. In today’s simple art, inference, historical thinking, radical thinking, particular forms and materials, and research can work very effectively!

Interviewer: So if we go back to the earlier discussion, your assumption is that the original lantern worked based on the Barrier-grid animation mechanism; but in your computerized representation, you were more faithful to the visual and movement logic of this object than to an exact and detailed reconstruction of its historical form and function. This was one of my questions too; because the credits text mentions the opening of the door of a workshop or factory, whereas this event doesn’t exist in your representation. I wanted to know whether this difference too stemmed from your formal choice and personal interpretation, or whether you didn’t have enough historical information at your disposal to represent that part?

S.H: Yes, I took inspiration from the “Glass of the Thirty-Two Skilled Artisan Groups” but I went my own way. That’s why, in the film’s main title, I specifically wrote: “an Étude by Shahriar Hanife.” This is part of this contraption’s identity.
Regarding the opening of the shops’ doors, however much I thought about it, I came to the conclusion that this movement takes the contraption out of the simple duality of “is and isn’t, or in other words being a grid.” In the text, it’s written in such a way that probably some of the occupations had no movement at all; because it says, “some of those figures, which in the craft required motion.” So it seems that the complexity of the contraption, at least in the part of setting the images in motion, wasn’t very high, and probably simple patterns were used.
Therefore, the movement of the doors opening, which counts as a movement opposite to the Barrier-grid animation pattern, must definitely have come from a third, external energy; one can guess it was an energy that the operator of the lantern themselves supplied in person. Perhaps they themselves would stand above the lantern and, by pressing another lever, open a third image, which would be the image of the doors.
The truth is, this idea, if I were going to implement it myself, wasn’t attractive to me. Of course, in that era, that is, around the year 1400 CE, it was certainly an attractive idea, and imagining it is truly exciting for its audiences. But I wanted to emphasize the simplicity of movement; unlike Khvājeh Alī Ardehgar Esfahānī, who was carrying out a very complex task in his own time and wanted to display his art in the best and most eye-pleasing form possible before kings.
In today’s world of animation, adding a third movement that isn’t proportionate to the two previous movements creates a challenge in itself; because after that the question comes up: why wasn’t a fourth movement added? Whereas in the world in which a film-animation like Avatar is made, this isn’t the goal at all!
And another mental challenge: I didn’t want to stand above the lantern in the film, like someone who is introducing Fānus-e Xiyāl to the audience, and do something; this is a kind of presenting oneself that doesn’t suit my character… at least here, it doesn’t suit it… Khvājeh Alī Ardehgar Esfahānī had the right to present himself alongside the lantern, because he had done a great work; he had the right to stand above his invention. But I haven’t done anything great! I wanted to turn off the lights, with the darkness of my house liken the image of the lantern to a cinematic image, and sit on a chair myself like a spectator and stare at the lantern. The opening of the doors was a disruption in this; so it was removed.

Interviewer: It seems that the more we talk about the changes you made to the lantern, the more the distance between your representation and the probable mechanism of the historical lantern becomes clear. Given the explanations you’ve given so far and our experience of talking with you, it’s clear that some of these limitations weren’t merely executional and also went back to your own formal and aesthetic concerns. In your mind, the issue isn’t only how to build a contraption, but the kind of encounter with it and the experience that is going to take shape.

S.H: It’s definitely so. Things always have to be sacrificed. The issue isn’t that the best elements necessarily remain; what matters is that the elements that ultimately remain work together in the best way. Every film is a big encounter that you have to prepare yourself for: your encounter with art history, your encounter with form, your encounter with the traces of your own filmmaking: the matches come from another film of mine, the clothing I wore comes from another film of mine… and the volume of removals is always greater. Does a sculptor, a stonecutter, do anything other than remove stones?

Interviewer: Thank you for your explanation. I think this conversation has helped a lot so far in gaining a better understanding of your personality and outlook. Well, I think we can move on to the fascinating topic of the occupations. I suggest that you first give a brief explanation of each occupation so that we get to know them, and then we can ask our questions more precisely. I just have one short question beforehand: did you draw the paintings yourself?

S.H: Yeah, I drew the paintings myself, but in designing them I took inspiration from pieces and patterns of Iranian miniatures. I would combine parts of several different paintings in a collage, and then, by adding details and changes, I would draw them again from those.
Interviewer: Thank you. Well, let’s move on to the occupations and see what features each of them has. Please explain each image for us, in order.

S.H:
. The first image is a “Shaʿrbāf” woman; in the text of the book, the word “Xayyāt” (tailor) is used, but I thought, given the historical importance of the textile craft, particularly cotton and silk weaving on the Iranian Plateau, it would be better to change this occupation to a specific profession in the field of fabric weaving. That’s why I chose Shaʿrbāfī; a profession that both suits Iran’s textile history and whose loom was very attractive to me.
Although it seems that Shaʿrbāfī, as a royal craft related to the production of exquisite fabrics, should have flourished more in the historical capitals of Iran, some of the greatest Shaʿrbāfs of Iran were active in cities that were never capitals; like Kashan and Yazd.

. The next image shows a “Dorūdgar” man; a profession that in Iran is more commonly known by the Arabic word “Najjār” (carpenter). In some museum collections, the variety of carpentry tools is truly striking and isn’t limited to a few common tools like the axe and adze. But unfortunately, many of these tools are delicate and small, and depicting them wasn’t very useful, because in the dimensions of my image and the shadow model that is part of the work’s form, their details weren’t clearly visible.

. The next image is an “ʿAraqgīr” (distiller) woman. In Iran, the distillates of various plants are extracted, and they have an extraordinary aroma and flavor and also have medicinal properties; given our literary documentation in Iran, distillation has a history of several thousand years, but I haven’t seen a physical example of its several-hundred-year-old tools anywhere.
Its apparatuses and tools today have different forms. The model I built in this image, with this very shape and appearance, has no exactly identical example in reality, and in fact it’s a schematic representation made by putting together and combining several real examples from different geographies of Iran.

. The next image shows a “Shīshehgar” (glassmaker) man. Historical glassmaking in Iran had formed a trade network even as far as very distant lands; so much so that Iranian glasswork has also been found in tombs belonging to the Western Jin and Northern Zhou periods.

. The next image relates to one of the occupations that has become completely obsolete. We see a “Kāghazgar” or “Kāghazī” (papermaker) woman who dips the mold into the water and brings it out so that the paper becomes smooth. My research shows that in East Asia they made paper by pounding tree bark, and well, the pounding of the wood and its getting wet would make the work very grueling and masculine. But in Iran, paper was also made from lighter fibers like hemp, cotton and silk, and for this reason we had Kāghazī women in Iran too.

Paper had a varied world; we had “Kāghaz-e Pāzahrī”, “Kāghaz-e Daftarī”, “Kāghaz-e Kāhī”, “Kāghaz-e Charb”, “Kāghaz-e Tahrīr”… The city of Samarkand has also been praised many times in Persian poetry for its superiority in this occupation.

. The next image shows an “Āhangar” (blacksmith) man. In the original text of the book, this occupation also appears under the title “Haddād”, which is the Arabic word for Āhangar. Of course, blacksmithing had various branches; for example, we had someone who made only knives, and he was called “Sakkāk”. Or we had the “Chelengar” who made only very small iron pieces, like nails and chains; or we had the “Qoflgar” who made only locks.
Depending on the type of work, a blacksmith’s forge could be large or small. Those whose focus was on making smaller objects had smaller forges, which were usually placed inside the ground; that is, they would dig a pit and sit beside it themselves. The forge I drew was for making larger objects; for example, a sword or a horse saddle.

. The next image shows an example of “Khātamkārī” (marquetry). Khātamkārī is one of the geometric methods of decorating objects, in which very tiny pieces of wood, together with pieces made of dentin, such as camel bone or elephant ivory, were placed next to one another. I tried to draw the film’s ivory in the image as well. There is also a lattice wooden frame inside the image, to which the object that is to be decorated, here a sword, would be tied with rope so that the object would remain suspended.
In this image, a Khātamkār is decorating an entirely wooden sword. These swords, which were very rich in designs, had no combat use and were used in the performing arts. Sometimes they would also write texts on the sword, though of course that written part no longer counts as Khātamkārī and is “Monabbatkārī” (woodcarving).

. The next image shows a “Kūzehgar” (potter) woman. The pottery wheel that appears in the image also has a history of use in Iran going back at least seven thousand years. In hot and dry regions, a jug could keep water cool and help foodstuffs spoil more slowly. Well, the Middle East has several large deserts, and it’s natural that pottery in such a climate would play an important role in daily life.

. The next image shows an “ʿAttār” (apothecary) man. It’s a bit hard to recognize his movement, but he is pounding and mixing together materials related to his own work, such as seeds, plants, and various extracts. Apothecaries in Iran played an important role in treating people, and sometimes even took the place of doctors. Sometimes they would also give people compounds with the claim of curing illness, the basis of which was folk beliefs or occult sciences.
. The next image shows a “Nānvā” or “Khabbāz” (baker) man. The oven I drew is specific to baking “Sangak” bread. Sangak is one of the most popular Iranian breads and is about 500 years old. According to one account, one of the Safavid kings, after seeing this kind of bread, ordered it to be baked at the court, and in this way made it widespread; if this account is true, the commercial birthplace of Sangak bread is probably the city of Isfahan. This image is one of those examples where I referred to an occupation that, with this graphic and these documentary references, didn’t exist at all in the fourteenth century CE! The bakery of my image dates to 200 years after the rule of Abū Saʿīd Gūrkānī.

. The next image is of someone who was called a “Namakī” (saltmaker). They are sitting on the ground, holding a wooden tool similar to a sand rake, though different from a sand rake, and the teeth of its tool are spaced much closer together. They would pour salt water into a very shallow basin that had a very gentle slope. They would slide the water slightly downward, and then, with this same tool, separate and collect the salt crystals from the surface, and then dry it too. In Iran we had many lakes and salt-water springs, and this method of producing salt was common in some parts of Iran, but not in all parts.

. The next image shows an occupation that was called “Dorsāyī” (pearl driller). This occupation too has completely disappeared. I found the name Dorsāyī in old texts related to the Shiraz bazaar; and I don’t know whether this occupation existed in other cities too or not, and whether it went by this name there or not.
In this occupation, they used a tool similar to a bow. A cord would be wound around a thin rod, and with the back-and-forth movement of the bow, the rod would turn. They would place the pearl beneath the tool and set the sharp tip of the rod on it so that it would be pierced. Afterward, the pearls were used to make necklaces and decorative items. In the past, pearls were considered among the most precious ornamental objects because obtaining them was truly difficult.

. The next image is “Pashmakī” (pashmak maker); an occupation from the “Qannādī” group, who in the old days were also called “Halvāyī” in general. Confectionery in Iran had a very broad and varied range. Usually, they would take the name of the occupation from the product the person made; for example, someone who cooked “Sohān” was called “Sohānī”, or someone who made “Kolompe” was called “Kolompe’ī”. The reasons for choosing pashmak from among Iranian sweets, for me personally, were that one was its antiquity, and another was its truly different texture.

. The next image is the occupation of “ʿAssārī” (oil presser). An ʿAssār is someone who extracts oil from seeds such as sesame and wheat. In the process I depicted here, the seeds are placed in a special place, and a man, by pulling down a large piece of wood, applies great force to them through a mechanism similar to a nutcracker, so that their oil is extracted. In the historical bazaar of Isfahan there is an old oil press house, which is both worth seeing and explains the stages of the work in detail.

. The next image shows a “Naddāf” (weaver); the work of the Naddāf was to loosen compressed, stuck-together cotton by a particular method so that it would become soft and fluffy again and be ready for reuse. Then they would sell this cotton to ladies or to craftsmen such as the “Lahāfdūz” and the “Pālāndūz”, to use it for stuffing quilts, mattresses, and other items. Even now I sometimes see people in Tehran who are engaged in this work.

. The next image shows a “Sāzgar” (instrument maker) man; someone who made musical instruments. In the image I drew, this man is engaged in repairing a santur, and a tar is also placed beside him. If we were to introduce ancient Iran with only a single art, I would say that art is music. Many of the world’s instruments, I mean the mother instruments, had their roots in these regions, and their oldest examples have been discovered on the Iranian Plateau.

. The next image shows a “Rangraz” (dyer) woman; this occupation was also called “Sabbāghī”. In this work, they would usually turn animals’ wool into yarn, and then dye the yarns with colors obtained from plants. This occupation too had a very ancient history; because animal husbandry was the main occupation of the people of Iran in the past, and dye-yielding plants were also abundant in Iran’s natural environment. Those circles you see inside the image are in fact large cauldrons in which they would dye the yarns. They would light a fire beneath these cauldrons; in the more professional models of cauldron-making, they would plan for a mechanism so that smoke would exit from a place where it wouldn’t reach the yarns, so that their color and quality wouldn’t be damaged. That’s why I didn’t show the fire in the image.

. The next image shows a “Sābūnpaz” (soapmaker) man, whose work was making soap. Through my mother’s parents, who lived in the Dasht-e Farahan region, one of the central regions of Iran, I know that this work had a history of at least several hundred years in that region; they would combine a plant called “Oshnān” (Seidlitzia rosmarinus) with animal fat and cook it. Of course, soapmaking definitely existed in other parts of Iran too, and it’s also probable that different raw materials were used in other places.

. The next image shows a “Zoghālforūsh” (charcoal seller); charcoal-making had a customary method in which they would stack wood on top of one another in a dome shape, then cover them with soil and light the fire from inside a pit. This method was very suitable for mass production of charcoal, and ordinary people also used it a lot. In fact, charcoal was something everyone made! Even if they came up short on money at the time of trade or paying taxes, they would give each other charcoal. It was like small change for everyone.
Charcoal-making, however, also had a more specialized method, which I painted. They would put the wood into iron barrels with lids and light the fire outside the barrel. This method gives us a smaller volume of charcoal, but the heat inside the barrel is more controllable, and the wood, unlike in the previous method, is wasted less and turns to ash less; so it was used for woods that were of higher quality and had a special use. For example, the charcoal of the Shah’s “Qalyūn” (hookah)! The king didn’t smoke the hookah with just any charcoal!

. The next image shows a “Dengkūbī”. Deng was the name of a traditional tool for “Berenjkūbī” (rice pounding), and a type of it that worked with foot pressure was called “Pādeng”. This tool was used in the regions of the Khazar Sea, or in other words the Caspian Sea. It was a thick piece of wood that acted like a seesaw. People, by pressing with hand or foot, would move the wood up and down so that its other end would strike the “Sheltūk” (paddy), and the outer husk of the rice would separate from the grain.

. The next image is a “Baqqāl” (grocer) woman, whom we also call “Khārbārforūshī” in Iran (in the sense of “Khordeh-bār-forūshī”, that is, a seller of goods in small quantities, a retailer). Grocers usually sold every kind of goods: legumes, vinegars, nuts, and so on; and there was a funny point about them: they tried to put their cheaply priced goods in front of the shop so that if someone stole something, they would lose less! They usually placed the more valuable goods behind themselves; like saffron, which, well, because it is a low-yield plant, is expensive, or salted fish, which weren’t easily found in cities far from the sea…

. The next image shows a “Khārbārforūsh” (grocer) woman. She also has a small hand scale for weighing light goods; of course, grocers usually had several kinds of scales, with different sizes and uses; the goods they traded were also very varied, from legumes and vinegars to nuts and other things. There was a funny point about them: they tried to put their cheaply priced goods in front of the shop so that if someone stole something, they would lose less! They usually placed the more valuable goods behind themselves; like saffron, which, well, because it is a low-yield plant, is expensive, or salted fish, which weren’t easily found in cities far from the sea.

. The next image shows a “Kāshīsāz” (tilemaker) man. Here we see a type of tile-firing kiln that had a tiered structure. You’ve definitely seen similar ovens in pastry shops today! With the difference that in Iran they used this same idea of a tiered kiln for firing tiles! Historical tilework in Iran is truly admirable.

. The next image shows a “Shamʿsāz” (candlemaker) woman. The candle mold I drew in the image is very elongated, and these elongated candles were used in the courts of kings. Ordinary people used household ovens more for lighting their homes, and if there was a candle at all, it was usually thicker candles, so that they would be more resistant and get damaged less. The first time, I drew my image with thicker molds, but I wasn’t satisfied with the result, and for that reason I changed the candle model. The method of work is also clear; they would pour the candle material into the mold and then place the mold in boiling water so that the material would, as they say, set.

. The next image shows a “Rofūgar” (carpet mender) woman. Rofūgar is what they call someone who repairs carpets; work that differs from “Farshbāfī” (carpet weaving). Carpet weaving was so common in Iran that everyone had a “Dār-e Qālī” (carpet loom) in their homes and were weavers themselves. That’s why perhaps we can’t easily speak of the existence of carpet-weaving workshops, in the modern sense, in which people were engaged in weaving carpets! But carpet mending was more specialized work and had shops of its own in the bazaars.

. The next image shows a model of “Dushābsāzī” or “Dushābgīrī” (syrup making) in the style of the people of southern Iran. “Dushāb” is a kind of syrup, the making of which was common in different parts of Iran, and it was usually obtained from dates or mulberries or grapes. We consume this syrup alongside tea or with food. This southern method drew me in more than the other methods of syrup making. In this method, they would pour the dates into a large basket-like container made of woven palm leaves and reed. This container was placed in a special syrup-extraction place, and they would wind ropes around this container and around the palm trees beside it so that the dates would gradually come under pressure. Then the date syrup is extracted and gathers in the space beneath the container, and through a hole fitted in its floor, it is transferred to a small basin.

. The next image shows a “Namadmāl” (feltmaker) man. “Namad” is a kind of floor covering made from animal wool, and in making it, unlike many floor coverings, the method of weaving isn’t used; rather, they make it with pressure, moisture, and heat. Even now, in some northern cities of Iran there are felt-making workshops. Among nomadic peoples too, Namad was a popular floor covering, because it is both durable and a good thermal insulator.
. The next image shows a “Kabābī” (kebab cook) man. Kebab is one of the popular Iranian foods, and in the past, as they relate, it often happened that people would go to the bazaar and, as they say, eat the bazaar’s kebab—instead of making kebab themselves at home. The most famous Iranian kebab is “Kūbīdeh” kebab, but in the kebab shops they would also grill cut pieces of meat and the meat of birds. I also drew a patterned brazier in the image, because the old braziers of Iran had very special designs and patterns and were usually not made in a simple frame-like form; for me personally, this is very interesting.

. The next image is a “Garmābeh-bān”, or “Dallāk” or “Hammāmī” (bathhouse attendant). In this image, the Garmābeh-bān, with the help of an apparatus whose name I don’t remember right now, is pulling out the sludge at the bottom of the pool; they would put the apparatus under the water, and it would gather the sludge into itself. I don’t know what its mechanism is, but I’ve seen a film of it being done.

. The next image shows a “Mesgar” (coppersmith) man. Coppersmithing is also one of the very ancient occupations in Iran. In this profession, by hammering and engraving on copper vessels, they would create beautiful patterns and decorations on the objects. In various museums of Iran, there are copper vessels whose age goes back several thousand years. In many cities of Iran, even small cities, there are bazaars specific to coppersmiths, in which the maddening sound of hammering can still be heard.

. The next image shows a “Givehdūz” (giveh maker). Giveh was a type of shoe that was common in Iran, especially in the regions around the Zagros mountain range. It was very durable, and one could even go hiking in it. One giveh would work for its owner for up to 10 years. Giveh absorbs foot sweat and prevents bad foot odor; for that reason, it was also very popular in Iran’s hot climate.

. The next image shows a “Khūlakbāf” woman. “Khūlak” is a kind of floor covering made from matting. This art, of course, had other names too; for example, in southwestern Iran they called it “Būriyābāfī”, or in the Lor-populated regions they called it “Chītbāfī”. “Khūlakbāfī” is a name that was more common in the southeastern regions of Iran. Of course, each of these has differences in the method of weaving and the type of raw materials. The raw material of Khūlakbāfī was reed that was collected from wetlands. Sometimes they also used reeds to make boats, which would be “Tūtanbāfī”.

. And the last image is the “Qessehgū” (storyteller). A man who has a Fānus-e Xiyāl placed in front of him and is engaged in storytelling.

Interviewer: That was wonderful. Thank you for all your explanations.

S.H: I tried to say it in the briefest form possible. And really, how much I talked!

Interviewer: Even these explanations were very useful and illuminating for us. Any work with this breadth of research definitely has many more details and layers that can’t all be addressed in the limited time. Thank you for the time you gave. On behalf of all the friends too, I thank you.

S.H: Thank you for listening.