The Handbook of Persian Carpets

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of Persian carpets from cultural and semiotic perspectives, exploring how nature and culture are expressed in this rich and multifaceted cultural artifact. The book aims to weave together history, art, culture, and language through the lens of cultural linguistics and semiotics. It draws on a new analytical framework (Keshavarz & Noshadi, 2023) that integrates elements of cultural conceptualizations and semiotics. The analysis of Persian carpets demonstrates that different components of cultural conceptualization, such as cultural schemas, cultural metaphors, and cultural categories, as well as semiotics, including signs, objects, and interpretants, are rigorously manifested in the intricate designs of Persian carpets. The book illustrates that these features are conspicuously imprinted in the culture of different carpet-producing regions of Iran and distributed in the collective memory of people throughout the country as a distinctly Iranian concept. The authors discuss the intercultural implications of the analysis of Persian carpets, highlighting how cultural interactions can be established and enhanced through the transfer of artworks and artefacts to other countries. This book is a valuable resource for students and researchers in the fields of Visual Arts, Cultural Linguistics, Semiotics, Anthropology, History, Sociolinguistics, and Persian Studies. It will also be of interest to general readers, particularly art enthusiasts, who are drawn to the cultural richness of Iran and especially Persian carpets that provide a treasure trove of cultural meaning.