Meroë, a remote kingdom south of Egypt; a ‘land shadowing with wings’; ruled by formidable queens called Kandake; beyond were remoter regions where snakes strangled elephants, ants ate gold, people were ruled by a dog… Meroë appeared in Greek and Roman encyclopaedias, novels, and histories from Herodotus, through Diodorus and Pliny, to Heliodorus and the Alexander Romance. The Acts of the Apostles tells us that eunuch chamberlain of the Kandake was converted by St Philip. What was the reality of his fabled kingdom?

Following extraordinary circumstances, the French noblewoman Louise Phélippes de la Marnierre (1781-1840) and her husband, a certain Dr Castaldi, quitted Europe to settle in Tabriz in 1819. However, the latter died only one year later leaving his wife alone and completely forgotten by the French government. Eventually, she managed to obtain the post of French tutor to the princes of the Qajar dynasty and became a reference point for European travelers and diplomats in Persia. In the years 1836-1837 she undertook an adventurous journey to Fars accompanied by a Persian scribe and a painter in order to explore the Achaemenid and Sasanian antiquities of the region. The result of her exploration was the creation of an illustrated manuscript whose intended audience was for the first time Iranian.