In 1976 and 1978, aerial photographer Georg Gerster had the rare opportunity to record the landscape of Iran on over 100 flights and 300 flying hours. This unique photographic project resulted in a near complete documentation of the major archaeological sites and important landscapes in the region. The book includes spectacular images of ancient citadels, desert ruins and rice fields spreading like a vast patchwork in a river delta, along with many unexpected sights, such as the bird's eye view of a crowded ski resort in the Elburz mountains, within easy reach of Tehran. Persia's densely packed cities like Bushehr on the Persian Gulf, are elegantly captured by Gerster and look so very different from Western European or North American cities of the same period.Persia's complex, interlocking flat-roofed buildings are both timeless and timely, with architecture that has stood unchaged for thousands of years, along with brightly-coloured 1970s cars parked in the colonnaded courtyards. Even the Persian landscape contains surprises: on closer inspection, the elaborate patterns made in fields with tractors and ploughs turn out to have more to do with politics than agriculture or land art - a law at the time allowed people to claim unused land by planting crops on it, and this type of 'agridoodle' was apparently enough to support such a claim.Persia is the anchient name of the region we now know as Iran. We still reference the country's long and rich cultural heritage when we speak of Persian carpets and Persian miniatures, of Persian language, history and literature. In her introduction to this book, Iranian-born writer Maryam Sachs lists some words borrowed from Persian by English speakers, which include azure, bazaar, gazelle, magic, musk, tapestry, scarlet, narcissus and paradise. These words offer insight into the country's landscape, inhabitants and traditions - influences that have indirectly shaped its landscape. This book vividly brings to life a place, time and culture that few people outside Iran are able to witness.

Table of Contents

The photographs in this book are organised into nine chapters, by region. An introductory text describes each geographical region. The book also includes a selection of Persion poetry and a map.Chapter 1: The North (Alborz, Caspian Sea, Gorgan, Mazandaran)Chapter 2: Persian Gulf and its IslandsChapter 3: Khorasan (Iran's largest province)Chapter 4: Kerman, Sistan, BaluchistanChapter 5: Kermanshah, Kurdistan, LuristanChapter 6: AzerbaijanChapter 7: Central IranChapter 8: Fars (Persia's Heartland)Chapter 9: Khuzistan

About the Author

Maryam Sachs (b. 1962) was born in Iran, and educated at the Sorbonne in Paris. She has a Masters in Economic Development from Columbia University, New York, and her books include the anthologies The Kiss and The Moon, The Wild Emperor (with her husband, designer Rolf Sachs) and Sans te dire adieu, a novel. She lives in London.Georg Gerster (b. 1928) is a pioneer in aerial photography. For over 40 years he has taken breath-taking pictures of mountains and deserts, coasts and lakes, agrarian and industrial landscapes all over the world. He took his first aerial photographs in the Sudan in 1963, and since then, he has taken photographs in 111 countries on all continents, covering all types of territory from the Amazon to Antarctica. He has photographed some of the world's most spectacular archaeological sites and ancient monuments, from the temple at Karnak, Egypt and the Acropolis in Athens, to the Great Wall of China. From 1975 to 1995, Gerster shot a series of now highly collectible advertising posters for Swissair. Gerster sees his work as a philosophical instrument: "distance creates an overview, and an overview creates insight." Based near Zurich, Switzerland, he also works a journalist, and is a regular contributor to the Neue Zurcher Zeitung and National Geographic.