Images

A detail of a c. 1835 portrait by Thomas Phillips of Lord Byron (1788-1824) wearing Albanian clothing. (National Portrait Gallery, London)

A c. 1821 painting attributed to John Welsey Jarvis of the pirate brothers Pierre and Jean Lafitte (also spelt Laffite, c. 1780-1820/26) who operated in the Gulf of Mexico from 1810 to 1820. (Louisiana State...

A 19th-century portrait of the Franco-American pirate and privateer Jean Lafitte (c. 1780 - c. 1821). (Rosenberg Library, Galveston, Texas)

Tepe Sialk is an archeological site (a tepe, "hill, tell") near Kashan in central Iran consisting of two hills with six main phases of occupation. The oldest settlements in Sialk date to around 6000–5500 BCE while the ziggurat...

Meybod is a desert city in the Yazd Province of Iran. It is an ancient city that goes back to the pre-Islamic era. In its stands Narin Castle, a mud-brick fort said to date from the time of the Achaemenids, although...

Naqsh-e Jahan Square is a public urban square situated at the centre of Isfahan in Iran. Constructed by Shah Abbas I the Great at the beginning of the 17th century CE, it is now an important historical site and one...

Yazd is the capital of Yazd Province in Iran. Nicknamed the "City of Windcatchers", Yazd is well known for its Zoroastrian fire temples, ab anbars (cisterns), qanats (underground channels) and yakhchals (coolers). Since 2017, the...

The Towers of Silence were used in Zoroastrianism. In the Zoroastrian tradition, corpses were left out exposed to the elements on structures commonly called Towers of Silence to prevent them from being contaminated...

Sasanian relief in Naqsh-e Rajab (Iran) depicting Sharpur I (r. 240-270 CE) on horseback (identified by a trilingual inscription) followed by a group of nine people. Naqsh-e Rajab is the site of four limestone rockface...

The Tomb of Cyrus the Great is the final resting place of Cyrus II (d. 530 BCE), the first king of the Achaemenid Empire. It is located in Pasargadae, an archaeological site in the Fars Province of Iran.