Scientific Journal of Pazhuhesh-e Honar

Maces are a long-standing (old) and powerful tool used in hand to hand and group wars. In addition to the martial aspect, they have had ceremonial, ritual, and mythical aspects. Mace is one of the most ancient weapons in the world and one of the most widely used weapons of the Hindu and European heroes and gods, and has been mentioned as the gods and heroes warfare in Avesta and Islamic texts. Due to the development of warfare, maces of simple forms into transformed the various geometrical, spherical, conoidal, bladed, chained, zoomorphic, dimonic and anthropomorphic forms. Often it has a strong body of wood or metal, and a heavy head of copper, bronze, iron or steel. Maces with various sizes can be regarded as symbols of power. Now the question is that how was the formation process of war maces in illustrations of these three Shah names, Baysonghori, Tahmasbi and Rashida? The purpose of this study is to know the types, evolution and depicted version of war maces in illustrations of three mentioned shah names. The reason of the transformation of the maces was the belief of gods and heroes, climatic and social conditions and progress in the manufacture of war weapons. Maces show the bravery of heroes and to create fear in the enemy. Mythological stories and the ceremonial aspect of war maces have been illustrated by the illustrations in these Shahnamehs. The research method is descriptive-comparative and the data are collected by using library studies, documents, creditable scientific sites and museums.