Qamsar ( fa, قمصر, also Qamşar, Ghamsar and Kamsār) is a small town in central

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. It is the administrative centre of the

Qamsar District Qamsar District ( fa, بخش قمصر) is a district (bakhsh) in Kashan County, Isfahan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 10,812, in 3,409 families. The District has two cities: Qamsar and Jowshaqan va Kamu. The District has ...

, which forms part of

Kashan County Kashan County ( fa, شهرستان کاشان) is in Isfahan province, Isfahan province, Iran. The capital of the county is the city of Kashan. At the 2006 census, the county's population was 297,000 in 81,816 households. Retrieved 26 October ...

is 15 km south of

Kashan Kashan ( fa, ; Qashan; Cassan; also romanized as Kāshān) is a city in the northern part of Isfahan province, Iran. At the 2017 census, its population was 396,987 in 90,828 families. Some etymologists argue that the city name comes from ...

in the Province of Isfahan. In the 2006 census the population was 3,566, in 1,048 families. From the 13th century and possibly considerably earlier,

cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, pr ...

was mined near Qamsar. The metal oxide was exported all over the Muslim world for use as the

cobalt blue Cobalt blue is a blue pigment made by sintering cobalt(II) oxide with aluminum(III) oxide (alumina) at 1200 °C. Chemically, cobalt blue pigment is cobalt(II) oxide-aluminium oxide, or cobalt(II) aluminate, CoAl2O4. Cobalt blue is lighter ...

pigment in the decoration of pottery. It is possible that the cobalt ore was also exported to China. In 1301 Abū'l-Qāsim, who came from a family of tilemakers based in

, wrote a treatise on the manufacture of

fritware Fritware, also known as stone-paste, is a type of pottery in which frit (ground glass) is added to clay to reduce its fusion temperature. The mixture may include quartz or other siliceous material. An organic compound such as gum or glue may b ...

ceramics in which he mentions the village as a source of cobalt ore.

Albert Houtum-Schindler General Sir Albert Houtum-Schindler (born 24 September 1846, the Netherlands or Germany; died 15 June 1916, Fenstanton, England) was a scholar of Persia and an employee of the Persian government. Career Educated in engineering at Leipzig Univ ...

visited the village at the end of the 19th century when Qamsar was "a large and flourishing village of about three hundred houses with extensive gardens with fine roses used for the manufacture of rosewater." Available fro
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but full view only available in the US. He described the processing and marketing of the cobalt containing ore. Golabgiri

Ghamsar is host to one of the biggest festivals of

called

Golabgiri Golabgiri ("making Rosewater") is a ceremony taking place annually from mid-May to mid-June in Kashan, Isfahan Province, Iran. The ceremony takes place throughout Kashan county, in Ghamsar, Niasar Neyasar ( fa, نياسر, also Romanized as Niā ...

to celebrate the production of

rose water Rose water ( fa, گلاب) is a flavoured water made by steeping rose petals in water. It is the hydrosol portion of the distillate of rose petals, a by-product of the production of rose oil Rose oil (rose otto, attar of rose, attar of rose ...

in spring.

References

Further reading