Sean-Paul Meets Scylla and Charybdis

I find myself with a dilemma, albeit a fortunate one. I am traveling to Iran to further research on a book and to accrue more personal experience with the people of the old Inner Asian trade routes. That means that my time in Iran is geared towards the Tabriz, Rayy (now a suburb of Teheran), Gorgon, Nishapur, Meshed route, with a detour to the cities of Shiraz, Isfahan and Yezd. All of these cities will add to the focus of the book in some material way. (Here are some maps.) So what's the dilemma?

Well, it's not like I'll be going back and forth to Iran a great deal, right? I mean, I'm comfortable making that assumption. The problem is that Southwestern Iran, especially the area centering on Ahvaz, also known as Khuzestan or old Elam, has a history stretching back, literally into the mists of time. It's damn near Edenic; a place of the first writing systems; home to one of the world's first city-state empires; and, most importantly, from an historical perspective, absolutely chock-full of Biblical history. The area from Hamadan south to Ahvaz is an historian's wet-dream. And it's not like I'll be getting a chance any time soon to tromp around old Sumer and Akkad, if you know what I mean.

So, if you were me, would you take a detour (most of the time will be taken from the Tabriz/Northwest phase of the trip--mostly because there isn't anything I can't already see in Southeastern Turkey) or just stick to the old Inner Asian trade routes and hope another opportunity presents itself?