Iran is an important place for architectural and archaeological studies, especially for its wealth of earthen architecture. International scholarly studies in Iran began in the late nineteen and early twentieth centuries. However much of this research was not published until the end of the 1950s. In the 1960s, many scholarly conferences and publications on the conservation of earthen architecture began. Two major events occurred regarding Iran’s architectural heritage. The first was the founding of an international academic journal, Iran Journal, in 1963 by the British Institute of Persian Studies. The other was the formation of the first international congress on the conservation of earthen heritage, Terra, held in 1972, in Yazd, Iran.
In this research with a comprehensive review of the history of the scholarship and heritage conservation in Iran, I did a systematic literature review on the presentation of Iran’s earthen architectural heritage in Terra congress proceedings and Iran Journal. The review of 165 published articles regarding Iran’s earthen heritage, showed three historical periods in this country’s international scholarship since the late 19th century. It also confirmed that majority of the published works come from archaeological and architectural studies, rather than conservation projects. According to this review, Iran challenges with the lack of international collaborative projects in earthen heritage conservation. The comparison studies between two publications showed a big gap in multidisciplinary collaborations between archaeologists, architects, and conservationists. I hope that this research with introducing the gaps in Iran’s earthen heritage research areas can create opportunities for planned scholarly studies