Iran has agreed to provide complementary data on ancient Sassanian cities of Fars Province demanded by UNESCO and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) by February 28, 2018.
Bishapour, Firouzabad and Sarvestan in Fars Province were listed collectively as "The Ensemble of Historical Sassanian Cities”, which according to the submitted dossier embodies the political, historical, cultural and artistic developments of the Sassanian period (224-651 AD).
Iran intends to inscribe the cities on the list of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites next year, along with the Arasbaran Forest in East Azarbaijan Province, ISNA reported.
Experts from UNESCO and ICOMOS arrived in Iran last week to assess the Sassanian sites.
According to Mohammad Hassan Talebian, deputy head of Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization, the experts have called for more detailed information than was provided in the submitted dossier.
"They asked the reason for introducing the three cities in one dossier as an integrated land and wanted to know the organization's plans for archeological studies in the cities," Talebian said, adding that the details as well as answers to the questions will be submitted by late February.
"The representatives [of UNESCO and ICOMOS] are to evaluate the conditions of Arasbaran in the next 10 days," he added. Arasbaran’s dossier was submitted in January 2017. If inscribed, it will become Iran’s second natural site on the World Heritage List after Lut Desert, which gained world heritage status last year.
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