Setting
Yazd lies between two deserts at about 1,200 m. The historic fabric is unbaked brick, with covered lanes, water cisterns and badgir wind towers that appear in nearly every description of the city.
Why this place matters for craft
Textile production is the thread running through the city's craft history: silk in medieval accounts, cotton and later machine-assisted weaving in the twentieth century, and termeh as the prestige cloth most often named today. Whether a specific pattern is 'traditional Yazdi' is usually a claim of the seller rather than a documented fact.
Quarters, bazaars and workshops
| Area | What is there |
|---|---|
| Khan bazaar | Central covered market; textile stalls including termeh sellers. |
| Fahadan quarter | Old adobe district with a few craft rooms in restored houses. |
What to look for on an object
- Termeh — A dense, slightly stiff hand with a patterned reverse; printed imitations have a clean unpatterned back.
- Zilu — Flat cotton weave with stepped geometry, heavier and coarser than a decorative cloth.
These notes are for learning to look, not for authentication. No description here certifies an object, its age or its origin.
Practical notes
- Termeh is sold widely; quality ranges from workshop silk to synthetic blends, and the fibre content is the question worth asking.
- Zilu is now rare, and pieces offered as old zilu should be treated with caution.
- Workshop addresses, bazaar hours and market days change; confirm locally before travelling.
Season: Autumn to spring. Summer heat is extreme in the middle of the day.
Used in these crafts
A patterned Iranian brocade woven with supplementary wefts, historically in silk and wool, associated above all with Yazd and Kerman.
A dense, pileless cotton floor covering woven on a horizontal loom, historically centred on the town of Meybod near Yazd, known for its plain-weave structure and geometric pattern created through warp and weft colour arrangement.
A figured silk weaving technique in which supplementary wefts, often including gold- or silver-wrapped thread, create pictorial or floral designs on a silk ground.
A silk weaving technique producing a cut or voided pile on a foundation weave, used in Iran for garments, cushion covers and furnishing panels, with figured Safavid velvets among the most studied survivals.
A hand-knotted pile textile woven across Iran in city workshops, village looms and pastoral camps, distinguished by regional structure, palette and design vocabulary.
The carving and moulding of gypsum plaster into architectural ornament, including mihrabs, inscriptions, muqarnas and wall panels.