The five senses are a window to communicate with the surrounding world. As a subset of the social history approach, the social history of the senses analyzes social issues through the study of sensory perceptions and sensory stimuli in the context of daily life. In addition to visual qualities, social photos have implicit layers that evoke other senses (hearing, taste, smell, and touch), which can be analyzed and interpreted using information, such as written documents, to obtain more detailed information about historical periods. Also, by extracting sensory elements from photos, it is possible to analyze the social categories of the population in a historical period and how they perceive the sensory stimuli in their daily life. The historical photos of the Naseri period, recorded inside the royal court or ethnography outside the court, can provide important information about Qajarians’ cognition and sensory experiences. But the fundamental question is, how is the historical analysis of senses in the text of such historical, social photos effective in understanding the text of the photo and also the social history of the mentioned period? And basically, can the study of the senses in the context of these photos point out the cognitive distinctions of people in different social classes? In this research, by using the social history of senses as a research method, we will discuss the content analysis of photos inside the royal palace and ethnographies of the Nasri period and compare them with the historical texts of the same period. The result is that the sensory elements studied in photos of different social classes of the Nasseri period are not the same. The ruling class and upper landowners intended to control the society and maintain their power using the various sensory stimuli. Modernity has also changed the way of life and, subsequently, the sensory perceptions of people in different social classes. These changes have generally started in the upper social classes and moved to the lower classes.
Keywords: The social history of the senses, ethnographies of the Nasseri era, the photographs of the royal life