a study of meander motif and its position in the ancient civilizations*

abstractone of the methods for communications with various people's culture and art is to understand their views and beliefs as well as possible. in many cases, such beliefs appear in the forms of motifs and pictures drawn on artworks and historical-cultural artifacts; therefore, recognition of these patterns is of great importance in this regard. the meander pattern is one of such motifs used as a symbolic and decorative array among various cultures throughout the history. this research aims at finding and recognition of the meander pattern and manifestation of various people’s beliefs and views in the form of those motifs. so while studying the meander pattern in different encyclopedic, historical and symbolic meanings, we reviewed types of the pattern and its relationship with other designs. moreover, the need for recognition of the motifs and symbols in the culture and art of iran, and attaining more information about their background in various arts, led us to study these arrays in the iranian art of prehistoric era and later periods. this research has applied with descriptive and analytical methods. in the search and compare of the meander pattern in the cultures is received that, it symbolic pattern, sometimes has made progress synchronized in different parts of the world. variety of this pattern throughout the world is the result of the influences and impressions that man got from his environment and different forms and designs around him. it has normally started with simple patterns and gradually it developed into more complex forms in an organized way. although unknown, but yet this artistic form has been present in iranian art since prehistoric period, mostly with a symbolic quality.various interactions among great civilizations in the past have led to mutual influence of their related cultures, relations and trades; those cultures consequently borrowed some decorative images and symbols from each other. the symbol of meander pattern entered iran from prehistoric period; as iranian art had a symbolic quality and tried to express its concepts and meanings in the form of abstract expressions, it received meander pattern in a limited form. meander pattern was originally found on the tel bakon ceramics. besides, there were some other patterns of meander among the carvings on the soapy dishes of jiroft. such designs have been also found in the decorations of ceramics and architecture of the region dating back to the 4th millennia b.c., but it has a more constant and significant presence in ancient civilizations of china and greece. according to various opinions, given the oldness of the discovered artifacts we can figure out that the meander patterns as decorations on admiralty dishes of primary dynasties in china were much older than the carvings on greek ceramics. these motifs have had symbolic usage in both of the mentioned civilizations, and they have been usually used to separate the bed from the margins of the work, or used in line and strap decorations of various works. they were also applied in different parts of buildings too. the motif has often been known as the symbol of life and longevity.