Wolfram Kleiss was born in Berlin (1930). In 1959, after he received a research grant from the German Archaeological Institute, he travelled for the first time to Iran. During 1971-1986, he was director of the institute’s Tehran branch. He has directed plenty of accomplished archaeological explorations in Takht-e Soleymān, Masjid Soleymān, Bastām, and Bīsutūn. His publications –more than three-hundred works- cover the vast topics of architecture and urbanism in Iran. He retired in 1995.