A Journey to the Oldest Layers of History, Through the Eyes of Children

Time Travelers to Ancient Persia is a children's book series that tells the history and archaeology of the Iranian plateau as story. In each volume two curious siblings travel back thousands of years with an archaeologist grandfather and a mythical bird, and come face to face with one real site and one real object.

The author, Bahram Ghadiri Khamjani, has spent more than three decades in the study and preservation of historical architecture and archaeological sites. That background is what keeps the stories anchored to actual finds while the telling stays in a child's language.

Four of a planned eighteen volumes are out. They run from Shahr-e Sukhteh, where a goblet carries the oldest known sequence of moving images, to Susa and a clay toy shaped by a child six thousand years ago, to Shahdad and metalworkers who were casting bronze five thousand years back. Later volumes reach Ganj Dareh, Tepe Asiab, Chogha Mish and Chogha Zanbil. The publisher, the Foundation for Persian Archaeological Studies, is based in Walnut Creek, California, and the site includes a section for educators and bulk ordering for schools and libraries.