Christopher stood on the hotel terrace, looking over the oasis town of Bam. It was the middle of December, the last month of the twentieth century. On the previous evening, he’d come in from Kerman: a four-hour bus ride across the Iranian desert. After finding a room, he’d gone out looking for somewhere to eat. Though he’d got his first look at Bam, it had probably been deceptive. While the buildings on the main roads were made of solid brick, they were to prove exceptional. Head down any alleyway and you’d find the mudbrick old town. As revealed from the…