From the Field to the Bookshop. Shaping Persepolis in the Early 18th century

Between the 17th and the 18th centuries three travelers — Jean Chardin, Engelbert Kaempfer and Cornelis de Bruijn — tried to represent accurately the Iranian monuments of Persepolis and Naqsh-e Rostam. Social, material, and environmental factors influenced the travelers’ observations on the field as well as the transformation of their notes and sketches in books and engravings designed for the public. In spite of the travelers’ attempts at overcoming the difficulties of fieldwork and reproducing in print the reality of Persepolis, their claims to truth — especially de Bruijn’s — were put in jeopardy not only by the nature of Persepolis as an unstable environment for the development of a historical knowledge, but also by their efforts to crystallize it through mobile material supports.