I stayed here merrily. I entered its palaces and took possession of its treasures and everything no one had ever achieved. My troops entered the sacred woodlands no stranger had ever passed by, observed its mysteries and set them on fire. I carried its soil in sacks to Assyria. I deprived this land of music and let it be devoured by ferocious beasts and snakes *
In the most fertile part of the Khuzestan plain, in the distance between the rivers Dez and Karkheh, there is a plain whose hills and vast sugarcane fields is the burial place of the remains of a great collection of Elamite civilisation and secrets. A civilisation that never recovered its former glory after the Assyrian invasion. A collection that has over time transformed into hills scattered across the plains after being destroyed. A significant part of this plain was leveled during the Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Agro-Industry Co. Plan, and the remains of a huge city fell silent and unknown on these farms. Large farms that house different layers of time in their hearts. Layers that sometimes show the anxiety, the dark political and economic era, and the interruption of one civilization amidst the emergence of another civilization. And, sometimes they are a testimony to economic and cultural prosperity of this land. These images are part of a long-term project resulting from my visits to Haft Tappeh from 2018 up until now. I returned as a stranger to a geography in which I once lived to better understand and re-understand the convergence of historical periods.
* Translation of a part of Ashurbanipal’s inscriptions (Assyrian king from 669-631 BC) concerning the conquest of Susa
