Many Safavid women were transported in litters – or what the Spanish Ambassador Figueroa described “more accurately as cages”. These were covered wooden boxes, just like those in the Qajar image below. Two boxes were suspended, one on each side of the carrying animal, with the woman facing either backwards or forwards as she chose, but always “sitting on her feet”. Figueroa described the “very ancient” custom forbidding any man from approaching these cages and how even “the first people in the Kingdom” would retire respectfully, while the less important could be made to lie face-down “with great blows from sticks”. When he wanted to overtake a great press of cages on the road from Qazvīn to Kashan, the Ambassador was “often forbidden” by the eunuch guards to pass nearby.
Figueroa was clearly not enamoured of the system; describing it as suitable for the women in Persia since they “possess no dignity, because they are almost all Slaves”. He was transported around Persia in 1617-19 in a litter – but surely can’t have used the undignified cages. Although he doesnt actually describe it, his own litter was carried by more than one camel (from the Ambassador’s description of an accident), and big enough to sleep in (while the cages were only 1.0 by 0.6m, and 1.2 m high).
Invalids, however, did often use the cages; and when he was sick then Olearius, the secretary to the 1635-39 Holstein mission to Persia, used what he called a “chest”, or Ketzaweha: “The Physician and myself were set upon the same Camel, whereby we were put to two great inconveniences; one proceeding from the violent Motion caused by the going of that great beast; and the other from the insupportable stink of the Camels”.
The German goes on to describe his unfortunate, if hilarious, entry to Qazvīn: “As we passed through the Meidan . . the people came also thither in great numbers, some of them having put it into their heads, that there were in the Ketzawehas, some great Beauties, whom we carried as Presents to the King; but when they saw sick persons with great beards coming out of them, they hung down their heads, and made all the haste they could away”.
Carolin – So pleased to have your blogs back again but hope you were alright in the wilds of was it Scotland?
Found last week very interesting as it has often puzzled me why this art should fall under a blanket title of ‘Islamic’. Especially when you consider that many of the patterns and ideas were pretty universal and much traveled and can pop up in so many different areas and countries – including Europe! I think we should start a movement to free-up ‘Islamic’ art and to be more specific in out terms.
Sarah x
Thanks Sarah!
I was indeed trying to get a debate / thoughts going – not only on the word Islamic, which has always seemed really limiting and quite unhelpful to me – but also on the word ‘art’: all the mass-produced ceramics dont all seem like art to me just cos they’re now rare. But then I think lots of this is about the market, that unstoppable monolith the market . .