Safavid engraved gold and silver damascened steel lidded bottles. Drop-shaped body on spreading trumpet foot rising to tubular neck with everted rim, separate drop-shaped stoppers. Body engraved and decorated with...
Safavid engraved gold and silver damascened steel lidded bottles. Drop-shaped body on spreading trumpet foot rising to tubular neck with everted rim, separate drop-shaped stoppers. Body engraved and decorated with cusped bands, joined by palmettes. The neck and the stoppers are also decorated with palmettes. Engraved and inscribed with floral sprays outlined in gold-damascening. The Safavid dynasty (/'s??f?v?d/; Persian: ?????? ?????? Dudman e Safavi[24]) was one of the most significant ruling dynasties of Iran, often considered the beginning of modern Iranian history.[25] The Safavid shahs ruled over one of the so-called gunpowder empires.[26] They ruled one of the greatest Iranian empires after the 7th-century Muslim conquest of Iran,[27][28][29][30] and established the Twelver school of Shia Islam as the official religion of the empire,[31] marking one of the most important turning points in Muslim history. The Safavid dynasty had its origin in the Safaviyya Sufi order, which was established in the city of Ardabil in the Azerbaijan region. It was of mixed ancestry (Kurdish[32] and Azerbaijani,[33] which included intermarriages with Georgian,[34] Circassian,[35][36] and Pontic Greek[37] dignitaries). From their base in Ardabil, the Safavids established control over parts of Greater Iran and reasserted the Iranian identity of the region,[38] thus becoming the first native dynasty since the Sasanian Empire to establish a unified Iranian state.[39] The Safavids ruled from 1501 to 1722 (experiencing a brief restoration from 1729 to 1736) and, at their height, they controlled all of modern Iran, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Armenia, most of Georgia, the North Caucasus, Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan, as well as parts of Turkey, Syria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Despite their demise in 1736, the legacy that they left behind was the revival of Persia as an economic stronghold between East and West, the establishment of an efficient state and bureaucracy based upon "checks and balances", their architectural innovations and their patronage for fine arts. The Safavids have also left their mark down to the present era by spreading Shi'a Islam in Iran, as well as major parts of the Caucasus, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia.