Combining Aesthetic Intent with Utilitarian Value, Hand-Crafted objects may be beautiful as well as functional. Crafts rely upon human ingenuity and productivity. They encompass both the products and the processes of production that comprise most aspects of material culture. The crafts of preindustrial Iran achieved distinction for their high levels of technical and aesthetic accomplishment. At different times in Iranian history, crafts sustained local economies, generated income from trade, and brought international fame.

As with all arts, crafts tend to be culturally expressive, exhibiting styles that may be geographically and temporally defined. Determinants of style may include availability of materials, local traditions of craftsmanship, levels of state intervention and other sources of influence, as well as aesthetic preferences. In Iran, from household production for home consumption to cottage industry and commercial city workshops, and from nomadic encampments to court ateliers, crafts represent products of nomads, rural villagers, city dwellers, and courtiers.

In theory, semantic memory may trigger and support the execution of everyday activities. This study explored this question by comparing three patients with semantic dementia to 40 normal controls performing different everyday activities. Participants were tested in their home using the Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Profile, an ecological measure of everyday functioning. Participants were informed that they had unknowingly invited two guests for lunch and should prepare accordingly. With these instructions, they dress to go outdoors, go to the grocery store, shop for food, prepare a hot meal, have the meal with the guests, and clean up after the meal. Performance was analyzed on the basis of four operations related to problem solving: formulate a goal, plan, execute, and verify attainment of the goal. Results indicate that compared to normal controls, two patients had significant difficulties and needed assistance with all operations of problem-solving, particularly while preparing a meal and cleaning up after the meal. One patient showed no difficulties despite severe semantic deficits. These results suggest that semantic deficits alone cannot explain the difficulties observed, but may contribute to some aspects of everyday actions such as those involved in everyday problem-solving. (JINS, 2012, 18, 1–11)

This article seeks to develop an interpretation of ornament as geometric pattern that embodies metaphysical intent in Iranian monuments of the fifth/eleventh century. The proposed argument elucidates cultural meaning relevant to a particular time and specific place, with implications for broader application.1 Reading geometric patterns as visual commentary, this approach relates the presence of patterns in art accompanied by a Qur'anic inscription to both the practice of pattern-making and the contemporary discourse concerning mathematics, philosophy, and the Islamic sciences in Iran. Particular emphasis is placed on the use of a passage from the Qur'an (59:21–24) inscribed on the tomb towers at Kharraqān, in which the Qur'anic term, amthāl, is taken literally to refer to the patterns executed on the monuments.