Tabriz was from the late 1260s the commercial and monetary capital of the Il-Khanid empire, through which the authorities succeeded in routing all significant international commercial traffic passing through Il-Khanid territory. European consumers pulled in more eastern goods than European producers exported to Iran and other eastern destinations. The outlets to the west were the ports of Ayas and Trebizond. The paper investigates the routes by which goods were supplied to Tabriz and the effects of commercial traffic on the cities lying along those routes. The channelling of Indian spices through the port of Hormuz on the Persian Gulf is well known, but the paper will describe Shiraz and Isfahan during the period. The role of Tabriz and Sultaniyya as a clearing-house for Iranian silk, marketed now to the west for the first time, will be described. In a previous period Tabriz had been supplied with Chinese silk and other goods from Central Asia, but this channel now supplied relatively few of the products sold in Tabriz' markets. The principal reason was not (as has been previously thought) that hostility between the Il-Khans and the Chaghatay principality produced conditions inimical to travel, but that Chinese goods were now taken through the Central Asian cities and those of the Golden Horde further west to the port of Tana on the north shore of the Black Sea and from there to the west. The more southerly cities of Central Asia such as Samarkand were correspondingly less active. The silk of Caucasian centres such as Ganja must have been marketed through Tabriz. But Georgian silk may have been transported directly via the still viable and active city of Ani. Finally the existence of Tabriz at one end and of the still commercially active Baghdad at the other end led to the maintenance of a whole swathe of intermediate cities, all supported at some remove by the demand and supply of the two large magnets. The prosperity of individual cities is known. But the explanation is put forward here for the first time. Much reliance is placed on the Latin and Italian sources, whose significance has not always been elucidated, and some on numismatic phenomena. Local Persian and Armenian sources contribute.

This paper describes the vitality of culture in the domestic vernacular architecture of the historic community of Masouleh, in Gillan province in northern Iran. The principal argument in this paper is that, as pieces of material culture, the houses in this community manifest the specific culture and background of its inhabitants. On the basis of this argument, I suggest that attention to the relationship between culture and the built environment is a crucial ingredient in the design and construction of sustainable communities. The two examples picked for this study demonstrate how culture holistically influences the design, building, and use of houses. The ritual of entering the house, the concept of hospitality and customs around serving guests, and the idea of privacy embodied in the panjara moshabaks (windows) of the two houses are cultural trends whose connection to the layout of the house is investigated in this paper. The organization and division of various interior spaces of the home based on gender roles, including female and male segregation based on routine daily tasks, is a further instance of the influence of culture on the shape of houses in Masouleh. Another piece of material culture important for this study is the practice of making handicrafts in home workshops. Knitting various handicrafts, such as gloves, scarves, socks, and dolls, is a part of the cultural outcome of the house in Masouleh, and an instance of the division of tasks according to gender, since the home workshop is comprised of a circle of women who work together to produce goods for sale. This paper also investigates the phenomenon of religion as a subculture, with particular attention to the impact of religious beliefs on the houses in Masouleh. Conducting religious ceremonies inside the house, such as mourning rituals during the month of Muharram, and the transformation of the house to a sacred space for the duration of these ceremonies, exemplifies how religious beliefs have an impact on the design and use of the houses. The investigation of these houses reveals that local culture, religious beliefs, daily routine and gender roles have a tremendous influence on the house as a physical entity. In the light of these findings, this paper concludes that the architecture in a sustainable community should be based on local cultural values, norms, beliefs and habits.