Iranian Traditional Instrument Stamps

This article features a 2020 issue of Iranian traditional instrument stamps. In particular, it is about a pair of instrument stamps and their appearance in a pretty wonderful souvenir sheet. Sets of instruments are very popular features from countries around the world. On this blog, you can see sets from Thailand, Gabon, Norway, El Salvador, Papua New Guinea, among others.

It seems clear that there are multiple purposes for such sets. Firstly, they typically celebrate the culture of a country. Secondly, they can help to create a sense of national unity through pride of this culture. Thirdly, they can highlight the traditions of different, sometimes minority, ethnic groups. Finally, I think that there is also an aesthetic reason. Such sets have a natural cohesion that can be easily identifiable as a part of a set.

The pair of stamps from Iran feature two string instruments: the tār, and the setār. The souvenir sheet places these stamps in the center of a third instrument, an image of a hand drum known as a tombak.

The Stamps

The souvenir sheet is quite striking. It features a very large and beautiful image of a goblet drum with micro-mosaic inlay and calligraphic text. In the center of the drum are inset a pair of stamps, each featuring a stringed instrument. The two stamps share a design, with a music staff and notes floating in the background. On the left of the stamp is the date written in blue. On the right reads the name of the instruments. The instruments float at an angle from the upper left of the stamp into the lower right. They each have the value of 18,000 Iranian rial. The stamps became available on December 25, 2020.

The Tār

The stamp on the left of the pair features a tār. Above you can see an example from the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The tār is probably from the region of Shiraz, but from there it spread across Afghanistan and the Caucases. The Iranian version of the instrument has a wooden (usually mulberry) bowl-back body in two unequal portions. Together, they form a figure-eight type shape with a much smaller top portion. The body is open to the front, across which is stretched a thin lambskin membrane, like a drumhead. There are usually three double-courses (pairs) of strings, which a player plucks with a brass plectrum.

Setār

The second set in the pair (on the right) features the setār. This instrument comes from the fifteenth century and began as a three-string long neck lute. In Persian, the name setār means three strings. Over time, some instruments have four and sometimes even five strings. An example from around 1860 in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art has fife strings. Setārs are used in classical repertoire and to accompany singing.

The Tombak

Finally, in addition to the instrument on the stamps, the drum on the souvenir sheet also deserves consideration. It is absolutely exquisite! Moreover, the drum on sheet is a photo of an actual instrument from the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The wonderful goblet-shape of the body is decorated with the micro-mosaic inlay technique known as khatam. This involves assembling very thin, long strips of wood, bone, silver, or ivory, and glueing them together to create a larger rod.

Then, the ends of these sticks are thinly sliced off and then these pieces are arranged and glued on the surface of an object. Typically, that might be a decorative box, a table, or a picture frame. Rarely, a musical instrument has the same decoration. On the drum, there is a central band that features the inlay arranged in large six-pointed stars, with miniature stars filling the spaces around it.

The drum from The Metropolitan Museum also has beautiful calligraphy around the head and lower edge of the body. Part of the inscription on the drum translates as: “When it sounds, it makes everyone in the world happy.”

As always, I encourage finding some recordings to hear these instruments. Here is a good example of a tombak and tār.