The dossier of creating and playing the Iranian traditional musical instrument dotar (meaning "two strings' in Persian) has been submitted for inclusion in UNESCO's List of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
"Local to a number of Iranian provinces, such as Mazandaran, Golestan, North Khorasan, South Khorasan and Khorasan Razavi provinces, dotar will be the first folk musical instrument with such a wide popularity to get international status," said Farhad Nazari, in charge of inscription of historical sites at Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization.
The proposal will be processed by UNESCO's intergovernmental committee for the 2019 convention, Mehr News Agency reported. "This will be the first Iranian musical instrument to gain international status by UNESCO, although earlier the dossier of Kamancheh was jointly filed with Azerbaijan," Nazari said.
Kamancheh (a bowed string musical instrument) was inscribed at the 12th session of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage, held on Jeju Island, South Korea, on Dec. 4-9, 2017.
The traditional long-necked two-stringed dotar originated in Iran. The instrument is currently played by western Chinese, Tajik, Turkmen, Uzbek and Kazakh musicians as well.
At the time of dotar's origins in the 15th century as a shepherd's instrument, its strings were made from bovine gut. However, with the opening up of the Silk Road, catgut gave way to strings made from twisted silk imported from China. To this day, some instruments still feature silk strings, although nylon strings are also commonly used.The dotar has a warm, dulcet tone. Typical sizes for the pear-shaped instrument range from one to two meters.
