ABBAS ALIZADEH STEPPED OFF THE PLANE IN TEHRAN EXHAUSTED AND A BIT ANXIOUS. HE HAD BEEN TRAVELING FOR 19 HOURS, FLYING FIRST FROM O’HARE TO DOHA, QATAR, THEN ON TO IRAN. IT WAS MAY 2021, AND THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PROFESSOR, ONE OF THE WORLD’S FOREMOST EXPERTS ON PREHISTORIC AND ANCIENT IRANIAN ARCHAEOLOGY, WAS THERE TO STUDY A COLLECTION OF POTSHERDS—FRAGMENTS OF CLAY VESSELS—HOPING THAT THEY MIGHT OFFER INSIGHTS ABOUT EARLY APPRENTICE POTTERS.
At Imam Khomeini International Airport, named after the late leader of the country’s theocratic government, armed guards and customs officials are ready to detain anyone suspected of bringing illicit items into the country — alcohol, women’s or pornographic magazines, pork—or bearing a visa stamp from Iran’s perennial enemy, Israel.
Alizadeh, then 70, was, in fact, carrying contraband: The Iranian-born professor had a pack of frozen kielbasas from Jewel-Osco furtively tucked away in his baggage. A gift for his family. You can find almost anything you want in Iran, if you have enough money. Polish sausages, though? These were not easy to get your hands on.
Alizadeh wasn’t too worried. Having returned to his home country many times in the years after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 — sometimes on archaeological digs, other times to visit family members—he knew that if he was caught with the sausages, the worst that would happen was that authorities would confiscate them and give him a stern talking-to.
Yet he still held his breath going through customs. The professor was guarding an immense and dangerous secret: Throughout his career, he had spent several years in Israel working on excavations. Even the faintest trace of a connection to Iran’s archenemy would raise a red flag with officials, who might jump to the conclusion that he was a spy. Sure, he had taken great pains to make sure his American passport didn’t carry any stamps from his multiple visits to Israel (holders of Iranian passports are prohibited from ever traveling to “the occupied Palestine”). But he feared his trips might have been discovered another way and his name placed on a watch list.
So when he passed through customs that day without a hitch, he felt relieved.
Over the next few days, pushing through his jet lag, he arranged for associates to assist with his archaeological research and visited family and friends, who insisted on serving him heaping portions of khoreshe fesenjoon (chicken stew with pomegranate and walnuts), ghormeh sabzi (herb, bean, and lamb stew), and chelow kebab (skewered meat with rice).
Then, around 8 one morning a week after arriving, Alizadeh was startled awake by the jarring sound of the doorbell ringing in the Tehran apartment he kept with his brother. Wearily, he got up to answer it through the intercom. “Who is it?” he asked in Farsi.
“Could you please come down here? This is official business,” Alizadeh recalls a man’s gruff voice answering. Through the video display, Alizadeh could make out five men, all dressed in baggy gray suits and collarless shirts. Their attire gave them away. He immediately suspected they were agents of the Iranian secret police.
Still wearing his pajamas, Alizadeh descended the three flights of stairs, his heart beating heavily.
When he opened the door, the leader of the group pulled out papers bearing the stamp of Iran’s attorney general and thrust them at Alizadeh, as if presenting the search warrant were a mere formality and not a necessary legal procedure. As Alizadeh scanned the
