Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization submitted the dossier for polo to UNESCO on Thursday, in an attempt to register the ancient sport as an intangible cultural heritage of Iran. According to Mehr News Agency, the nomination will be reviewed in 2017. Known in Persian as chogan, polo is a game played by two teams of three or four players on horseback who are equipped with long-handled mallets for driving a small wooden ball through the opponents’ goal. The general consensus is that chogan originated in Iran nearly 2,500 years ago. The sport was a popular pastime of royals, especially in Isfahan, where the iconic Naqsh-e-Jahan Square — itself a world heritage site — served as the royal polo field.
