Head of Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization congratulated the inscription of the Sassanid Archaeological Landscape of Fars Province in the list of World Heritage Sites, referring to it as "a remarkable success that was achieved through hard effort."
"Despite the tense political atmosphere dominating the meeting, Iran managed to convince the majority of member states to vote for the site's registration," he was quoted as saying by ISNA.
The ensemble of three ancient Iranian cities was granted the global status by UNESCO on Saturday during the 42nd World Heritage Committee Session in Bahrain to represent Iran's 23rd and Fars Province's fourth site on the coveted list.
"The dossier was prepared by a team of archeologists, cameramen, documentary producers and scholars after three years of study and research," Mounesan said.
The landscape comprises the historical cities of Bishapour, Firouzabad and Sarvestan in Fars Province that are home to the ruins of the city of Goor, Ardeshir's Palace, Qal'e-ye-Dokhtar fortress and Sassanid bas-reliefs.
Dossier's History
Archeologists insisted that each of the historical zones within the area had the potential to be registered on their own and they were earlier submitted in separate files.
However, last year, ICHHTO proposed the dossier of the Ensemble of Historical Sassanian Cities along with an amendment letter notifying the interest to register the sites collectively as one historical zone.
In the meeting, the representative of ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) cited poor conservation status of the sites suggesting that the file had to be deferred until the next session in 2020 so that more information about the place could be collected.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Tunisia and Brazil picked faults with the file regarding archeological maps and management plans and voted for the dossier's deferral, too.
However, Spain was the first country to recognize the value of the region and spoke in favor of the registration drawing attention to criteria 2, 3 and 5 of UNESCO's 10 criteria of selection.
China, Kuwait, Tanzania, Cuba, Burkina Faso, Uganda and Bahrain followed suit.
Australia supported the file, although it pointed out a number of shortcomings in the dossier.
The chair of the committee, Haya Bint Rashed Al Khalifa of Bahrain, asked Abdolrasoul Vatandoust, Iran's representative, to provide explanations in defense of the proposal.
He then made a speech about the significance of the landscape which eventually led to the endorsement of the proposal.
Selection Criteria
To be included on the World Heritage List, sites must be of outstanding universal value and meet at least one out of ten selection criteria.
Criteria 2, 3 and 5, that were best fitted by Iran's sites, involved exhibiting an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning or landscape design; bearing a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared; and being an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture (or cultures), or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change.
