Engare started out life as a question posed by Bahrami’s high school geometry teacher. By Chris Priestman.

These historic churches feature elaborate carvings that mix Christian and Viking symbols. By Jennifer Billock.

Shah Cheragh is one dazzling funerary monument.

In 1999, while taking a break from my PhD to try to get rich in the fine jewellery business, I nearly became the world’s largest counterfeiter of Fabergé eggs. It all started in Arlington, Texas, where my brothers and I owned several jewellery stores. Boris, an alcoholic Russian ex-pat who’d been with us for years, came into my office one January morning... By Clancy Martin. (Feb. ’09)

Instagram photographer m1rasoulifard captures the structural and artistic intricacies of iran's most renowned places of worship and cultural complexes.