TEHRAN -- The renovation of the Bam Citadel requires a budget of one trillion rials ($108.2 million), the director of the Bam Cultural Heritage and Tourism Foundation said on Monday.

Eskandar Mokhtari noted that during the last three years almost 15 percent of the task has been carried out and that the remaining 85 percent is scheduled to take another 12 years.

The Bam Citadel and the city of Bam were almost entirely destroyed by a devastating earthquake on December 26, 2003.

The restoration of the citadel to its former glory requires a huge budget of 60 billion rials per year but the Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicraft Organization and the Bam Renovation Center have only provided one allocation of 60 billion rials so far, Mokhtari added.

The renovation process over the past three years has consisted of emergency protection operations, the equipping of workshops, documentation activities, and geological and archaeological surveys, he explained.

Covering an area of 180,000 square meters, the Bam Citadel is located 200 kilometers south of the city of Kerman. The citadel was the world’s largest adobe building.

It is not known when the Bam Citadel was originally built, but it is widely believed that it was constructed during the Sassanid era (224-651). While some remains date back to the 12th century and before, most of what remains was built during the Safavid era (1502-1722).

The citadel had been partly renovated several times before the earthquake.