To introduce Iran Stone Industry, it is good to know that extracting and using building stones in Iran, has a long history. Using these stones as building or dimension stones was ordinary in the first millennium of formation of civilization in Iran. The remaining vestiges of using them in Persepolis, Pasargadae, Takht-e Soleymān and many other Islamic and Sasanian buildings is distributed all over the country.
Iran’s Stone Industry
In spite of Iran’s ancient civilization and stone structures, Iran’s stone industry is not that old. The first sawing machine was made, when building “Marble Palace” started in 1928. It used some hanging weights to cut things. The next machine was made in Mashhad by Goldschmidt in 1933 and another machine similar to this was also made by a company.
First Stone Cutting Factory
The first stone cutting factory was founded by “Astan Quds Razavi” in 1938, in Mashhad. This factory was built by German experts and was launched in 1939. It was built to supply needed stones for the “Shrine of Imam Reza”, but after that, the produced stones were used in Iran Central Bank in Tehran, Bank Sepah Central Branch in Tehran, Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade building, Marble Palace, and so forth.
First Iranian Bridge Saw
This factory had two sawing machines one cutter and one bridge saw, and two polishing machines made by Germany. In 1949, one Iranian bridge saw and in 1953 one Iranian polishing machine was added to the factory. The cutter had 40 metal blades which were adjustable and placed 3-5 Cm from each other. The blades were able to move forward, backward, upward and downward.
Belts and wheels conveyed the power and one electromotor supplied the needed power. A shower was placed over the blades which poured water into the blades and stone. In 1320, Goldschmidt and his Iranian coworker invented a new sawing machine in Javadieh, Tehran. In the meantime, Nazi Abad factory increased its sawing machines to 11, and supplied stones to Imam Ali and Imam Hussain shrines in Najaf and Karbala and “Arg mosque” in Tehran. In 1948 another factory was launched in the vicinity of 17 Shahrivar roundabout in Tehran.
Stone Cutting Factories Increase
Stone production continued in the same way until 1966, then the first sawing machine with adamantine blades was imported to the country, and made it easy to mass-produce stone. It is worth mentioning that, this method had been common in foreign countries since 15 years earlier. Until end of year 1964, there were totally 10 stone cutting factories in Iran, one of them was located in Mashhad and Isfahan and the others in Tehran. Number of stone cutting factories in Iran has profoundly increased in recent years.
Ranking Fourth Facade Stone Producers in the World
Today, Iran is one of the countries producing and exporting building stone that exports it to both parts of the world in both raw (without cutting) and cut (slab and tile) forms. The total capacity of known stone mines in the country is 47 billion tons, of which about two thousand industrial units with a capacity of 27 million tons, which is very small, are operating in this area.
Of this amount, 4 billion tons is related to facade stones and decorative stones, which in this regard has placed Iran in the fourth ranking of stone producers in the world. The largest volume of stone exports from Iran is in the form of crude sales, which is about two-thirds of the total stone exports, whose main destinations are China, UAE, Turkey and European countries Italy, Germany, Britain, France, Belgium, Poland, Australia and Japan.
References
https://www.iranstoneexpo.com/en/blog?id=60f5764addcd9
https://www.mimt.gov.ir/
