WSEAS International Conference on CULTURAL HERITAGE AND TOURISM (CUHT'08), Heraklion, Crete Island, Greece, July 22-24, 2008 Analyses of Maragheh Tile School One of the Most Effective Factors in Cultural Heritage Formation of Maragheh Architecture during Historical Periods 1AHADOLLAH A'ZAMI, 2SEYYED HOSEIN YASREBI 1Department of Architecture, 2Department of Civil Engineering 1Islamic Azad University-Heris Branch, 2Islamic Azad University-Tabriz Branch Department of Architecture, Islamic Azad University-Heris Branch, Heris City, East Azarbaijan Province IRAN Abstract: - Regarding all remained tiles of tile decoration art, it could be said that Maragheh has been one of the most important center of this art during Ilkhanid times in Iran. There have been some well known and main centers of tile works in this period such as Kashan, Takht-e-Soleiman, Isfahan, Kerman and Soltaniyeh. But in decoration field with brick and tile, around sixteen kinds of tile scrape with extraordinary diversity are noticed in Maragheh observatory. As far as color is considered; blue, cerulean, white and black colors are used in Soltaniyeh and we have mostly turquoise and brown color in Maragheh. Investigation Maragheh observatory two very valuable tiles are found: 1. square sun-dries tiles with embossed intersecting spirals which have special colors and radiance in front of sun light and give special beauty to building. 2. Big sun dried tiles with inscriptions which are voted high among the tile of the period for their size, inscriptions and the kind of writing on them. As for the first kind tiles, it should be said that, not a one tile of this kind is found in other places of Maragheh or even other places other than Maragheh during Ilkhanid times. If this conclusion is true and no other samples are remained hidden, we should say that the creation and use of this kind of tile is initiated in constructing Maragheh observatory in Ilkhanid times and most probably the first step in creating diaphoretic tiles has been taken in this place. Besides, turquoise tiles used together with traditional light and shade brick decoration in Red Dome of Maragheh, which is surely one of the masterpieces of Islamic-Iranian architecture, is a sample showing that tile work art of Maragheh has started since Seljukian times with glorious samples as Blue Dome and continued its way to become the epoch in the growing process of Islamic-Iranian architecture decoration. It means that this art was the first to use tiles in building decoration together with brick works in a new method. This article examines and analyses building tile work art with high architectural value of Maragheh in different period of history. Key-Words: - Tile work school (style), Maragheh, Cultural heritage, Art, Architectural space 1 Introduction accordance with architecture and were important in Since the invention of tile it has been broadly used to achieving the atheistic and applicable goals of the decorate building surfaces all over Iran. During Islamic building construction. In such a field studying Iranian periods in Iran there has been a vast use of tiles to tiles would lead any researcher to understand and know decorate internal and external surfaces of religious different issues. For example they can make good places, king palaces and the houses of rich people. guesses about the lives and behavior of the prices and Choghazanbil temple in Khuzestan is one the place the very rich people of that time and the behavior of where first Iranian tile can be found. These tiles are Muslims inside the mosque. Gradually after the glazed wall tiles whose shapes are square and some expansion of Islam, tile art became widespread and used embossed works can be seen on them. The production as the main object of decoration and cover for the date of these tiles is estimated to be thirteen centuries durability of buildings especially religious buildings. before Christ. Stone work, brick, plaster and tile works are the four On the whole it was noticed that tile work reflected kind decorations of Islamic architecture of Iran which techniques of pottery work and the interest and taste of have passed through natural, political and economical its protectors of the time while showing the building changes of history and left beautiful memorials of yield. Since the walls with tiles were made on external themselves, but in last one or two centuries and by the and internal routes of the building, these works were in beginning of machine time and by the development of ISBN: 978-960-6766-89-3 136 ISSN 1790-2769 WSEAS International Conference on CULTURAL HERITAGE AND TOURISM (CUHT'08), Heraklion, Crete Island, Greece, July 22-24, 2008 new arts the traditional decorative architecture of Iran when using together with bricks they used turquoise tiles has been forgotten. like the bezel of ring in different geometrical shapes and mold them between bricks in different sizes or the put the second bricks as Kufi inscriptions. 2 Turquoise and single color tiles Attacks from Mogul made an interval in art activities, During 12th century (sixth century in Islamic calendar) but from the middle of thirteenth century and by the turquoise and cerulean colors became popular and were Islam being accepted by Ilkhanid leaders the used together with non-glazed bricks. The remains of establishment of religious and non-religious places was this period are some incurved and glazed turquoise tiles started with brick and tile decorations. Since then the use with inscriptions on them. of other colors such as yellow, indigo, brown, black and The moldings of some tiles were embossed. While white became common. The tile decorations which were some others were flat and were decorated using colors. applied only on external parts of building were used to The incurved tiles were difficult to find and it seems cover internal parts as well. they were of rare kinds. The technique includes three different processes: single color glaze, enamel on the glaze and golden color on glaze. The certain thing here 3 Golden Color is that use of single color glaze is the continuation of This technique was first used in eighth century in Egypt past traditions. But, during Seljukian times the colored to decorate glass and probably it has expanded to Basra glazes as cream, turquoise blue and cerulean color and Iraq and transformed on earthenware later on the glazes became wide spread. [2] golden tiles are first made around ninth century and are The destruction caused by Mogul during 13th century found in Samira Iraq and Girvan Mosque of Tunis. The affected the tile production process and there have been most glorious golden tiles belong to twelfth and found no tiles around 775-787 A.D. fourteenth century earthenware of Kashan. After freeing cities the Ilkhanid leaders started What Abolghasem calls it two-fire glaze is in fact renovating the old buildings and constructing new painting on golden color glaze and was the most famous memorials. The result of such action was amendment in technique in decorating tile. After applying white glaze tile work industry. This period can be named the most on tile body and baking it, the tile was pained with silver fruitful one regarding tile industry. A large number of and copper pigments and was heated again in kiln and tiles were produced for inscriptions and decoration of finally looked like a shining metal. According to studies religious non-religious buildings. The cover technique on sculptures which conducted on the first golden color was ruined and other kinds of earthenware decorations tiles and since these tiles were mostly used in sculpture replaced them which were called cerulean later on; this works rather than plant patterns, it can be said that these technique was in fact added to mono color, multi color tiles belonged to non-religious buildings. and transparent techniques. The requirements decorated In the beginning of Ilkhanid time, golden color with cerulean techniques were glazed with white, technique was applied on glazes with no added color. cerulean and in rare cases with turquoise color after But in last 25 years of 13th century a little of cerulean molding process; red or brown colors were added on this and turquoise colors were used. Entering 14th century glaze and were heated for second time. Not only making sky blue color became more popular. The topic of these the architecture more rich by decoration, the glazed tiles tiles includes some scenes of Iran’s epical history. The made cover for wall elements of building as well. [1] elements such as dragon and Ghoghnus are affected by Due to lack of enough research conducted in cities Chinese patterns. There are some poems of Iranian belonging to primary Islamic periods and some other Shahnameh book displaying on the tiles as well. [3] limits, we don’t have exact information and proper The golden color tiles of non-religious buildings in knowledge about application of covers and decorative 13th century, before Ilkhanid times and the attacks by bricks with mono color glaze and their initiation time as Mogul, are divided into two general groups: small well. But, based on some scattered information and golden color polygon tiles of 9.51 to 13.2 cm, as shown remains we can deduce that the architects were aware of in the picture, and big stars and crosses of 31.1 cm. the glazed brick secrets since Seljukian time. At the same most common type of small tiles was octagonal star tiles time some of primary and historical resources state that which are united with mono color glazed tiles. [1] from the beginning of Islamic period the buildings were The production of golden color glaze has a decorated with some kind of tile.