Historical period
Contemporary
معاصر1979–present · Master artisans work alongside designers and conservators; several techniques survive with only a handful of documented practitioners.
Key developments
- Studio craft
- Revival projects
- Export cooperatives
- Digital documentation
Centres of production
IsfahanShirazTabrizYazdKerman
Crafts documented in this period
| Craft | Category | In brief |
|---|---|---|
| Khatamkari | Woodwork | A Persian inlay art in which fine rods of wood, bone and metal are bundled into star units, sliced into thin sheets and applied to a wooden surface to form dense geometric tessellation. |
| Persian carpet | Textiles | A hand-knotted pile textile woven across Iran in city workshops, village looms and pastoral camps, distinguished by regional structure, palette and design vocabulary. |
| Tabriz carpet | Textiles | The workshop carpet tradition of Tabriz in East Azerbaijan, characterised by drawn cartoons, a distinctive hook-knife weaving method and a wide range of fineness grades. |
| Termeh | Textiles | A patterned Iranian brocade woven with supplementary wefts, historically in silk and wool, associated above all with Yazd and Kerman. |
| Qalam-zani | Metalwork | The Iranian tradition of decorating copper, brass and silver vessels with small chisels struck by hammer, working the metal into line, ground and relief. |
| Persian miniature | Painting | The Iranian tradition of small-scale painting made for manuscripts and albums, built from fine line, flat luminous colour and layered spatial convention rather than single-point perspective. |
| Nasta'liq calligraphy | Calligraphy | A hanging cursive script developed in Iran for Persian poetry, distinguished by its sloping baseline, sharply contrasted thick and thin strokes, and sweeping final letters. |
| Haft-rang tilework | Ceramics | Square polychrome tiles painted with several overglaze colours and fired together, allowing large architectural schemes to be produced faster than cut tile mosaic. |
| Gabbeh | Textiles | A thick, coarsely knotted pile rug woven mainly by pastoral and village weavers of the Zagros, with open fields, few motifs and a directly personal design language. |
| Kilim (Gelim) | Textiles | A flat, pileless woven textile made across Iran by interlocking or slit-weaving coloured weft threads over a warp, used as floor covering, storage bag, saddle cover and tent divider depending on region. |
| Jajim | Textiles | A narrow-strip flatwoven textile, usually made in warp-faced bands on a portable loom and then sewn together into a wider cloth, traditionally used as bedding cover, floor spread or door hanging by village and pastoral households. |
| Qalamkar block printing | Textiles | A resist-dyed and block-printed cotton textile, historically associated with Isfahan, in which carved wooden blocks stamp repeating floral and figural patterns onto cloth in successive colour stages. |
| Pateh embroidery (Kerman) | Textiles | A hand-embroidered wool textile from Kerman in which coloured silk or wool threads are worked in dense chain and satin stitching over a woollen ground, typically in a limited palette against a natural or dyed field. |
| Sermeh-duzi | Textiles | A metal-thread embroidery technique in which fine gold or silver wire, or wire-wrapped thread, is couched onto velvet or other heavy cloth to create raised, reflective patterns, historically used on ceremonial garments and furnishings. |
| Namad felt | Textiles | A non-woven wool textile made by matting and pressing raw wool fibres with moisture, heat and friction rather than by weaving, traditionally produced across Iran for floor coverings, cloaks and protective mats. |
| Giveh footwear | Textiles | A traditional handmade summer shoe with a cotton-thread woven or crocheted upper and a sole historically made of pressed cotton fabric or leather, produced in a number of Iranian towns known for the craft. |
| Zilu (Meybod) | Textiles | 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. |
| Minakari enamel | Metalwork | A decorative technique in which powdered coloured glass is fused by heat onto the surface of gold, silver or copper objects, producing a smooth, glossy coloured surface, historically practised in Isfahan on vessels, jewellery and decorative panels. |
| Filigree (Malileh) | Metalwork | A metalworking technique in which fine drawn wires of silver or gold, often twisted or beaded, are soldered into openwork lattices and coiled floral forms to build jewellery, vessels and decorative panels. |
| Moarraq tile mosaic | Ceramics | A technique of architectural revetment in which monochrome glazed tiles are cut into small individual pieces to a template and set together, glaze face down, into a mortar bed to form complex polychrome patterns and inscriptions. |
| Lalejin pottery | Ceramics | A regional pottery tradition centred on the town of Lalejin near Hamadan, producing thrown and press-moulded glazed and unglazed earthenware, from utilitarian storage vessels to decorative tableware, in a large number of household workshops. |
| Gereh-chini lattice | Woodwork | A joinery technique for building geometric lattice screens and panels from small, precisely cut wooden pieces assembled without glue or nails, using interlocking notched joints to form windows, doors and room dividers with openwork star and polygon patterns. |
| Wood carving (Monabbat) | Woodwork | A relief wood-carving technique in which solid panels, furniture and architectural elements are carved directly with chisels to produce raised or recessed floral, arabesque and geometric ornament, distinct from inlay techniques that build a surface from separate pieces. |
| Paper marbling (Abr-o-bad) | Paper arts | A decorative paper technique in which pigments are floated and manipulated on a thickened liquid bath and then transferred to a sheet of paper by careful contact, producing swirling, veined patterns historically used for manuscript covers, borders and endpapers. |
| Persian lacquer painting | Painting | A decorative technique in which papier-mâché or wooden objects, such as boxes, mirror cases and pen boxes, are painted with fine miniature-style scenes or floral ornament and then sealed under multiple coats of clear lacquer varnish. |
| Turquoise inlay (Firuzeh-kubi) | Metalwork | A decorative technique, associated particularly with Mashhad, in which small chips of turquoise are set edge to edge with adhesive onto a metal object's surface to create a dense mosaic-like covering, most often seen on vessels, jewellery and decorative plates. |
| Brocade weaving (Zari-bafi) | Textiles | 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. |
| Rasht embroidery (Rasht-duzi) | Textiles | A northern Iranian needlework tradition associated with Rasht in Gilan, combining wool felt or broadcloth appliqué with chain-stitch embroidery for covers, hangings and saddle cloths. |
| Needlework embroidery (Suzan-duzi) | Textiles | A broad term for Iranian needle embroidery on cotton, silk or wool grounds, including counted, darned and satin-stitch work used on covers, garments and prayer cloths. |
| Jewellery and gem setting | Metalwork | Iranian jewellery ranges from gold and gem-set court ornaments to silver tribal adornment, often combining enamel, turquoise, pearls and coloured stones. |
| Glassmaking | Glass | Iranian glass includes Sasanian cut glass, early Islamic mould-blown and cut vessels, and later blown bottles and rosewater sprinklers, with a small studio glassblowing tradition today. |
| Stucco carving (Gach-bori) | Architectural ornamentation | The carving and moulding of gypsum plaster into architectural ornament, including mihrabs, inscriptions, muqarnas and wall panels. |
| Stone carving (Hajjari) | Stone | The carving of marble, limestone, alabaster and softer stones for architectural elements, gravestones, inscriptions and vessels. |
| Bone and ivory carving | Bone and horn | The carving of bone and, historically, ivory into figurines, plaques, combs and inlay elements, also used as a component in khatam. |
| Instrument making (Saz-sazi) | Musical instruments | The workshop making of Iranian instruments such as the tar, setar, kamancheh, santur and oud, combining woodwork, skin membranes and inlaid decoration. |
| Illumination (Tazhib) | Book arts | The decoration of manuscript pages and album leaves with gold and coloured pigments in geometric and floral designs framing text or painting. |
| Slip-painted ceramics | Ceramics | Earthenware decorated with coloured slips under a clear or tinted glaze, including early Islamic Nishapur-type wares and later village production such as Lalejin. |
| Mat and basket weaving (Hasir-bafi) | Basketry | The weaving of mats, baskets, fans and containers from date-palm leaves, reeds and rushes, practised especially in southern and northern Iran. |
| Leatherwork (Charm-duzi) | Leather | The cutting, stitching, tooling and painting of leather for bags, belts, bookcovers, saddlery and small goods. |
| Traditional bookbinding (Sahhafi) | Book arts | The hand binding of manuscripts and books with leather or lacquer covers, often with a flap (lisan) and stamped, cut or gilded decoration. |
| Puppetry (Kheimeh-shab-bazi) | Performing crafts | Traditional Iranian string-puppet theatre, and the craft of making its carved and costumed puppets, including the well-known character Mobarak. |
| Kashan carpet | Textiles | Hand-knotted city carpets from Kashan, often in wool or silk, known for medallion designs and deep reds and blues. |
| Nain carpet | Textiles | Very finely knotted city carpets from Nain, recognisable by ivory and blue palettes with silk highlights. |
| Heriz carpet | Textiles | Durable, geometric village carpets from the Heris area of East Azerbaijan, with large angular medallions. |
| Bakhtiari carpet | Textiles | Village and tribal carpets from the Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari region, best known for the garden (khesti) design of repeated panels. |
Period dates follow conventional scholarly ranges. Attributing a single object to a period is often uncertain; this page is under review.