Rugs woven in Aran-Bidgol, a district near Kashan, are known by the latter name.
These rugs are woven densely with double weft; one is thick, cotton and hidden among the warps and the other is thinner and blue, which is seen at the back of these rugs. The old Aran pattern was a Corner Medallion with a brownish red background and a medallion and dark blue margins. Today, urban designs and patterns are common used in Aran-Bidgol rugs, Caroun website reported.

Origin
Carpet weaving began in Kashan during the Safavid Era. Gold Textures and precious rugs woven during that period are masterpieces of dyeing and weaving.
At that time, Kashan rug weaving rose to the highest peak and artists wove precious specimens, which are sought by great museums of the world.
Unfortunately, after that period, weaving in this region stagnated and dissipated like in other parts of the country. Resumption of rug weaving in this city is indebted to the efforts of “Haj Hassan“, “Haj Mohammad Jafar Isfahanian“ and “Hossein Kashi“.
“Mohtasham“, who is another well-known designer of Kashan rugs, made attractive designs in the contemporary context and remarkably enhanced their beauty.
Design and Designers
These rugs contain flowers with curved lines that are called Palmette Flower, Corner-Medallion, Vase, Mosque Lamp, tree in the prayer niche, Indian Joshaghan, Haj Khanomi Vase and Garden Scenery.
Palmette Flower is largely woven with a warm color background.
The traditional Corner-Medallion design of Kashan is a fine dark blue medallion on a crimson background, which is repeated in its corners and margins, or a crimson medallion with a dark blue background. This design is woven in weaving centers of Iran such as Kashmar, Yazd and Ardestan. Even Egypt weavers produce such designs.
Kashan weavers have inherited the textures, braid, velvet with satin weaving, gold textures and taffeta, which made Iran well known even in the farthest parts of the world for what’s known as “Hormozian Textures“.
Today, Kashan’s rugs enjoy a place of honor in museums and private collections, and symbolize the art of Iranian rugs.
Historical problems, industrial development, the arrival of weaving machines in villages, as well as the appearance of different European machine-made textures and clothes have damaged the reputation of Kashan rugs. Only villagers with sufficient experience and dependent on weaving as a source of income played a great role in this field.
Kashan’s rug weaving regions include Natanz and Joshaghan, which spread to parts of Golpayegan, Mahallat, Ardestan and Isfahan .
Images
As far as the history of Kashan’s rugs is concerned, the profession has survived from ancient times in spite of economic crisis.
Decorative designs, like in other traditional Iranian carpets, contain a large medallion in center and have a margin. The central design consists of several homocentric medallions. This star-like image (like a snowflake) is surrounded by corners. Arabesque and Chinese images decorate the background with corners containing vivid colors.
Corner-Medallion, Palmette Flower and Isfahan ’s images, as well as the flower and paisley images of Sarough carpets with a red background, dominated the designs of Kashan’s rugs for a long time. A large flower with Chinese leaves was common with a blue background. Flowers with curved lines and Herat ’s old designs were known as Mostofi Flower.
Old Kashan rugs had margins with 4 to 6 secondary parts, as well as a monochromatic margin. Secondary margins consist of small flowers placed beside one another and the design is known as “Madkhal“.
Red and blue darkened the background of some rugs, particularly the prayer rugs.
Four colors are largely used and known by a special word from the local dialect: 1- Cream. 2- Melai (Yellowish orange made by mixing 1/2 cup of yellow dye and 4 drops of dark blue dye. It is known as “Sekai“). 3- Portrait (light pink).

Characteristics Wool
In the past few years, most rugs were woven of merino wool, but today its use is limited, because of the high price.
Wool, used in Kashan workshops, is provided by some foreign sources, as well as Khorasan, Azarbaijan, Kermanshah and Tehran provinces.

Texture
Kashan rug is woven in double-weft and “Senneh“ knots that range from 1,600 to 8,000 per square decimeters.

Dyeing
Former dyers of Kashan used a purple shell to dye the fibers red, which lent a special brightness to it. Today, most of the dyes used are chemicals and mostly in crimson, blue, dark blue, turquoise, dull beige, cream, grayish green, brown and greenish yellow.

Head of Yazd Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Department Mohammad Hassan Khademzadeh gave word of the completion of Yazd’s case as one of the choices to be registered at United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a global heritage in 2011, CHN reported.
In 2007, Qar-e Kelissa lost the chance of being registered as global heritage due to the technical problems of the case presented to UNESCO’s Secretariat. As of 2007, Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ICHHTO) prepared a few cases concurrently to prevent the recurrence of Qar-e Kelissa’s case. So for 2011, Iran has requested that Yazd historical texture, Tabriz’s historical bazaar and Sheikh Safieddin Ardebili’s Mausoleum be registered as global heritage.
According to UNESCO’s regulations, each case takes two years to be finalized.
Khademzadeh also said, “Since the historical texture of Yazd has remained untouched, we nominated Yazd for being registered as global heritage. Yazd’s governor and mayor have cooperated for compiling the case.“
He recalled that construction works at the library on Basij Boulevard have been stopped so that worries about affecting the historic texture of Yazd would be removed.
“Construction works started at the library a while ago. However, ICHHTO ordered that it must stop,“ he concluded.

Khuzestan province, which is situated in a plain, is the cradle of civilization since ancient times. The plain has been referred to as ’Susiana’ in Greek literature.
This region was the hub of the Elamite civilization and called ’Shushan’ in the Elamite language. Historical sites and monuments in the northwestern parts of the province hint at the fact that the area must have been host to different civilizations throughout history. Andimeshk is situated in the northwestern part of Khuzestan. The city of Andimeshk extends to the plain of Khuzestan on the one side and the Mesopotamia on the other. It extends to Karkheh River to the west and Dez River to the east.
The large number of spas in the region and the unique living conditions paved the grounds for the settlement of different peoples centuries ago. Therefore, it is not far-fetched to maintain that Andimeshk belongs to the fifth century (BC). To prove this claim, archeologists have conducted excavations in the ancient hills of Tolaei and Sanjar.
In ancient times, Elamites managed to use Zagros mountain range and establish links with the people of Mesopotamia in the strategic region via Andimeshk. A senior expert of history of civilization of Iran and the world, Homayoon Hatamian, said, “Andimeshk is the connecting point of Elamite and Mesopotamian civilizations. Most of the links between the two civilizations were in the area, which is today called Andimeshk. “
He also said, “One important historical document that introduces today’s Andimeshk as the ’throat of the ancient world’ is an inscription currently kept at the British Museum in London. A descriptive and pictorial account of a war fought between Ashur Banipal, the Assyrian monarch, and Elamites in 644 BC is written on the inscription. The picture on the inscription shows that after the defeat of Elamite Empire and destruction of Choghazanbil, a group of Assyrians took statues of Elamite gods such as Lut and walked along the river. The area is the present-day Andimeshk or the ancient strategic passageway. Furthermore, the war that Shapour, a Sassanid monarch, fought in 260 is good evidence for the fact that the passageway played a key role during the reign of Sassanids. In his war against the Roman Empire, Shapour takes the Roman Emperor Valerian prisoner. Valerian and other Roman prisoners are brought to Khuzestan through Andimeshk.“ The expert emphasized that Andimeshk was also of paramount importance during the Islamic period.
“The Moguls used Andimeshk as a passage for defeating their main adversaries that is the Abbasids in Baghdad. In fact, the best place for gaining access to Baghdad for the Moguls was Andimeshk,“ he noted.

Governor of Maragheh said that Hampoul Cave in northwest Iran is a unique tourist spot.
Bohloul Nemati also said the cave which has the same status as Ali Sadr Cave (in Hamedan province) will soon become a tourism hub with the implementation of a coordinating plan, IRNA reported.
The cave is considered an important research resource since fossils and numerous works from different geological periods were found there.
Hampoul Cave, also known as Kaboutar Cave, is the world’s second grey cave in terms of its area and antiquity. Wild birds seek shelter in the cave’s internal ceiling which is also the habitat of thousands of bats.
The best time to visit the cave is from May to October.
The cave is located some eight kilometers from Maragheh, which in turn is situated 147 km to the south of Tabriz, the capital city of East Azarbaijan province.