Iran before and after the revolution: textual and visual metaphors of graffiti during the revolution Introduction During the prehistoric period, man created signs on the surfaces of caves and, starting from the end of civilization, on the walls of ancient structures Although in some cases the motivations for producing such signs are shrouded in mystery, wall paintings and engravings certainly serve as factual evidence of human presence in various places. The appearance and production of graffiti techniques have changed over the decades, but the cave paintings of the prehistoric period, the ancient engravings or the contemporary graffiti of today have at least one thing in common, and that is: they are all human products created with particular purpose and meaning. Usually, the term "graffiti" is widely known and implied to define a contemporary form of graffiti and wall paintings. In reality the word refers to any writing or image scratched, engraved or painted on various surfaces at any time in history. According to the Longman Dictionary, the word graffiti is defined as its Italian root "Graffiare" which means "to leave marks on a surface". ". Also, referring to Rychlicky (2008), graffiti is a plural form of 'graffiti', which, in turn, "denotes an image scratched onto a surface." These examples probably present the most basic definitions of graffiti, even if nowadays researchers can find a rather wide range of characterizations of graffiti, which place emphasis on some aspects of this phenomenon. Furthermore, it is worth noting that although the word "graffiti" has existed for centuries, its implications in the English language as a specialized term are quite recent and originated from b...... middle of paper...... 979, the post-revolutionary period of the Iran-Iraq war, and the recent events during the elections of 2009, which gave rise to the green movement. It will argue that graffiti in Iran during the 1979 revolution and its aftermath created an alternative public space through which anti-regime views were emphasized and expressed influenced by some cultural, social and religious symbols, as well as by political ideals. Therefore, one of the main questions of the study is: what textual content, visual and metaphorical techniques were used in different political periods? What were the differences and similarities between the 1979 graffiti revolution and subsequent graffiti? Another important question of the study concerns the ways in which meanings were created by certain symbols and metaphors in different periods .