Until the 1920s Falak (bastinado) was the dominant form of public punishment and torture in Iran. Bastinado was used to punish children, servants, criminals, dissidents, and even the members of the elite and the government officials.

Ferdowsi Avenue is a major thoroughfare in Tehran and it used to be called Ala'odoleh Avenue in Qajar period. It runs from Toopkhane in the south and after passing through Istanbul intersection it ends in Ferdowsi Square in the north.

The Former Embassy of Iran in Washington, D.C. is located at 3003-3005 Massachusetts Avenue, in Washington, D.C.’s Embassy Row neighbourhood. Withdrawn, silent, and inaccessible it has been closed since the fall of the Shah, and the US embassy hostage crisis of 1979.

Warning against dumping trash is the dominant graffiti on Iranian walls. The graffiti sometimes is accompanied by cursing or threats against the person who dumps trash. These pictures were taken in a neighborhood in Shiraz on April 14, 2012.

The Blind Owl (1937) is Sadegh Hedayat's most enduring work of prose and a major literary work of 20th century Iran. Written in Persian, it tells the story of a young man's despair after losing a mysterious lover. As the narrator gradually drifts into madness, the reader becomes caught in the sandstorm of Hedayat's bleak vision of the human condition.

In 1969 Henry Clarke, a fashion photographer, went to Iran to take a collection of pictures for Vogue. He photographed his models in mosques and palaces in Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz and Persepolis. The pictures were published in Vogue on December 1969.

"Persian Excursion", Gentlemen's Quarterly (today's GQ magazine), October 1969.

This collection of pictures shows the signs for roadside ice-sellers’ kiosks and shops. These photos were taken in Iran between 2002 to 2011.

In 1951 the offices of the United States Information and Education Services (though this title cannot be found on Google) in Iran was located in Shah-Abad avenue (currently known as Jomhouri).

Traditionally, one needed to visit an expert to purchase a talisman. But in today's Iran, thanks to the photocopier, one can buy a photocopied talisman from the shops near the Shiite shrines.

Sani-al-Mulk’s illustrations for “One thousand and One nights” - (c. 1853). Mirza Abol-Hassan Khan Ghaffari Kashani, also known as 'Abol-Hassan the Second' and 'Sani-al-Mulk', is considered the first teacher of European style of painting in Iran.

Beautification is the process of making visual improvements to a place or an urban area. With regard to Iranian towns, this most often involves displaying decorative statues and sculptures in public spaces.

"Method of Teaching the Deaf" by Mirza Jabbar Asgarzadeh, known as Jabbar Baghcheban, was the first book for speech training for Iranian deaf students. Baghcheban was born to Iranian parents in Yerevan, Armenia, in 1884. After World War I, he moved to Iran's East Azerbaijan province and started work as a teacher.

Iranian Driving licence issued on May 5, 1943.

Photos from old government buildings of Rasht, the largest city on Iran’s Caspian Sea coast. Almost all the buildings are still standing, but some of them with different names from the past. For example, today “The hospital building Baladieh” is known as “Municipal Building No. 2”. * Images provided by Damon Moradi.