Persepolis And The Stone Age

By Simin Saghafi

A deeply personal account of war, memory and resilience from inside Tehran, where ordinary life continued even as the world outside seemed to fall apart. Originally written in Farsi and translated into English by the author herself.

Day One Hundred and Something

At last, we regained access to the international internet. Messages from friends abroad had piled up during the days of war and silence.
One of the first came from a friend in Australia. We chatted for a while, and laughingly she said:
“What that Strait of Hormuz turned out to be! Before this war, most of us had never even heard of it. Now the whole world is talking about it.” She was referring to rising fuel prices.
Then she sent me a photograph of an old khatam artwork she had purchased in Iran twenty years ago. It featured a profile that resembled an Achaemenid figure. “Who is this?” she asked. Perhaps Cyrus the Great. Perhaps an Achaemenid soldier. She seemed relieved when I told her that Persepolis had not been damaged during the war.
Her question reminded me of a statement by Trump, who once said he wanted to send Iran “back to the Stone Age.”

From One Civilization to Another

One of the war’s darkest days was marked by a countdown — a designated hour when, according to endless speculation, all remaining infrastructure might be destroyed. What could one do in such circumstances besides charging phones and laptops?
I cooked a rice dish with fresh dill while waiting for the chicken to finish roasting. My brother was coming over for dinner. I made extra food for the next day. Who knew? Maybe the electricity would fail. Maybe water or gas would be cut off. At least we would have one ready meal.
I found myself imagining the other side of civilization. The place we were supposedly destined to be thrown into. Perhaps we would discover fire again, hunting, cooking kebabs over open flames. The difference, of course, would be that humanity has already walked this road once. Everything would happen in fast-forward. No need for Jules Verne’s imagination. No need to wait for Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta, Naser Khosrow, or Saadi to travel the world for us. We already know the routes.
Perhaps we would build a new civilization quickly. A civilization where people’s voices are heard. A world governed by more honorable leaders.

Voices — Day Forty-Two

The news spoke once again of possible ceasefire negotiations. I stopped by my apartment. More lights were on than before. More residents had returned. From somewhere upstairs came the sound of laughter and conversation between two young women.
How wonderful, I thought. Perhaps enough voices had already spoken the language of war. Perhaps now we were hearing the sounds of waiting for peace. Or maybe simply another kind of happiness.
Two days later, disappointment returned. It felt as though someone had sprinkled dust over people’s faces and over the sky itself. Everyone was shopping frantically. Meat. Chicken. Fruit. Vegetables. Bread. Even gold. The previous night, news had arrived that no agreement had been reached.
It is not that I wanted a superficial ceasefire. In fact, I preferred a durable agreement. But each time hope begins to grow, so does the fear that your homeland may once again be left to suffer.

Like Covid — Day Thirty-Seven

All day I kept thinking about how much these wartime days resemble the days of Covid. Perhaps it was because of rumors that the electrical infrastructure might be targeted. I hoped it would not happen, but some preparation seemed sensible.
I had already bought candles. I deliberately kept the freezer less full than usual, so fewer supplies would spoil if the power went out. My mother worried about the half-empty refrigerator. I placed a flashlight where it would be easy to find. I even considered making an emergency oil lamp.
Mostly, I wondered how boring life would become without electricity. No television. No internet. Then again, maybe more sleep. More books.
How quickly human beings adapt. During Covid we learned how to protect ourselves and how to fill our days. Back then we heard news of someone’s death almost every day. Now we hear of people killed, places destroyed, and pieces of our homeland wounded. And so many “if only.”
Yet Covid taught me something valuable: to take as much joy as possible from every moment. A kind of Khayyam-like philosophy of life. To appreciate beauty. To call a friend. To visit a loved one. To live in the present. Perhaps now, when every day carries uncertainty, that lesson matters even more.
So I walk. I shop. I cook. Just yesterday I made cream apples. I try to look differently at the fact that my savings are running low and I have no job. What other choice do I have? Even my relationships seem to be taking on new colours.
Yet the hardest burden of all is worry for my homeland. I am not afraid of death. Nor unemployment. Nor illness. But every wound inflicted upon this land hurts deeply.

Wounds — Day Thirty-Six

I always wanted to remember Bushehr for the dazzling blue of its sea. For its warm-hearted people. For its poetry gatherings and Khayyam recitations. But shame on war.
Today I watched footage of people performing the traditional mourning ritual of Senj-o-Dammam on the shoreline for sailors whose bodies never returned from the destroyer Dena. I was devastated. A white naval shirt fluttered in the wind, held by a mother, a father, a brother, or perhaps a child.
There was also the framed photograph of a young sailor. The caption beneath it said he had neither father nor mother. No one was waiting for him. Or perhaps an entire nation was. Ninety million people.

Stranger Than Words — Day Seventeen

Over the past couple of days, it feels as though attacks on infrastructure and civilian areas have intensified. I find myself thinking of those apocalyptic images from Gaza.
Meanwhile, I am making dolmeh. I found the filling in my mother’s freezer, and bought the vine leaves from a small shop that remains open even in these wartime days. I never imagined that, just a couple of days before Nowruz, I would be sitting here rolling dolmeh while wondering how far this war might go. How much more destruction. How many more lives.
What a strange world this is. And what a strange existence we Iranians are living. Perhaps the strangest of all.

Birthday

It is the twentieth day of the war. Today is the day when we Iranians welcome the New Year — Nowruz. We were out shopping when we heard the air-defense batteries, followed by explosions. Yet people kept shopping — for sprouts, candles, flowers, and goldfish to complete their Haft-Seen tables. There was only a short time left until the New Year.
It was the strangest New Year’s Eve of my life. After many years, I was spending Nowruz in Tehran again — but this time under the shadow of war. Instead of the familiar melodies and joyful music that usually accompany the turning of the year, the city echoed with the relentless sounds of air-defense systems and bombardment.
These days, the rain feels like the only source of hope, as if every drop carries the promise of extinguishing the fire. On my Nowruz greeting cards, I wrote: “May it bring peace, rain, and joy.”
Nowruz 1405 (2026). The first day of the New Year also happens to be my birthday. I never imagined there would come a time when simply waking up alive in the morning would feel like the greatest birthday gift. Birthday messages kept arriving, warm and full of kind wishes. I appreciated every one of them, yet I couldn’t quite feel like celebrating. War has a way of changing even the meaning of birthdays.
Perhaps that is what history has taught us Iranians: how to endure. We are a people who have learned, time and again, to survive the unimaginable — to rise from beneath the weight of history and still welcome the spring.

Ruin Tourism

The war had reached its first month. It was Nowruz. A tour-guide friend came to visit. Although perhaps “friend therapy during wartime” would be a better description.
We decided to go for a walk. Neighborhood after neighborhood bore the scars of destruction. Including our own. We visited bombed sites around the city. My friend jokingly called it “ruin tourism.”
The sky was impossibly beautiful. A brilliant blue. Fresh spring leaves glowed beneath it. Together they formed a picture almost too beautiful for the circumstances.
We found the damaged apartment blocks. Several buildings had partially collapsed. The exposed layers of people’s lives were visible. Kitchen cabinets. Living room furniture. On one upper floor, a neatly ironed shirt still hung on a clothes hanger. The wind made it dance. Perhaps it had been someone’s Nowruz outfit. I wished I could photograph it. But taking pictures of such places was not easy these days. So I stored the image in memory instead.
That evening, while treating ourselves to ice cream, the electricity went out. Several substations had been damaged. I lit a candle. We continued eating our ice cream in the darkness. Then I remembered something. Those candles had come from Bali. I had bought them for last year’s Nowruz table. They glowed in photographs of a tropical New Year celebration. And now, one year later, they illuminated a wartime blackout.
What strange journeys objects take. What strange journeys we take.
Before bed, I locked the front door. Almost nobody remained in the building. My friend asked: “If you were here alone, would you be afraid?” I thought about the nights of the twelve days’ war. And answered: “No. It feels as though there is nothing left to fear.”

Embassy

It is the twelfth day of Farvardin. At 5:30 in the morning, we woke to the sound of an explosion. My mother too. Two massive blasts, one after the other. Poor Mom, with her fast heartbeat.
They say the embassy has been hit. An odd thought crosses my mind: America has bombed the American embassy. What a symbolic gesture. Perhaps it no longer wants a relationship. Or perhaps it seeks to upgrade that relationship — to somewhere better, somewhere higher.

Sizdah Bedar

It is the thirteenth day of Nowrooz. The clown of a man has said he will send us back to the Stone Age. I am furious.
Early in the morning, I put the beans and lentils on to cook for Ash-e Reshteh. Then I go back to sleep. The soup slowly makes itself. I wash the lettuce for the traditional Sizdah Bedar meal, although we have no sekanjabin. Mom is planning to make koofteh. I persuade her to leave it until evening.
Since morning, they have been striking Tehran, Isfahan, and Shiraz. A large bridge in Karaj has been blown up. Again Isfahan. Ports in Qeshm and Charak. Abadan. And more.
We eat our ash and, following our annual tradition, I send photographs of it to friends. The lettuce too. As if preserving a small piece of normal life.

A Beginning — Day Two

It is 5:41 in the morning. The sound of anti-aircraft fire — or something similar — fills the air. I was already awake. I had just helped Mom to the bathroom.
A moment earlier I had been thinking how nice it was that the night had passed quietly. Perhaps it had stopped. Then the sounds began. And now there are more. Sometimes very close. Sometimes far away. There is also the sound of aircraft overhead. You hear it and wonder: what is happening now? These modern wars. What a terrible thing they are.
I hear movement from the apartment above. The elderly couple must be awake too. Yesterday, around 9:45 in the morning, I was awoken by another enormous explosion.
Life now seems measured not by hours, but by blasts.

About the Author: Simin Saghafi is a Tehran-based journalist and tour operator. This is her first-person account of living through the Iran–US conflict that escalated into war on 28 February 2026. Told through a series of intimate reflections, she chronicles how ordinary life — cooking, celebrating Nowruz, caring for family, and staying connected with friends — persisted amid bombardment, uncertainty, and loss. This article was written on June 26 but published today.