TEHRAN – Nine historical and natural sites in the southwestern Khuzestan province have been inscribed on the National Heritage List, IRNA reported.

The Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts announced the inscriptions on Tuesday in a letter to governor-general of the province, the report added.

Remnants of the historical city of Manjaniq, Majid Khan Castle, Imamzadeh Hamzeh Holy Shrine, Iran Club, and Tchogha Pahn Hill in different cities of the province are among the properties added to the National Heritage List.

Khuzestan is home to three UNESCO World Heritage sites of Susa, Tchogha Zanbil, and Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System yet it is a region of raw beauty where its visitors could spend weeks exploring. The province is also a cradle for handicrafts and arts whose crafters inherited from their preceding generations.

Lying at the head of the Persian Gulf and bordering Iraq on the west, Khuzestan was settled about 6000 BC by a people with affinities to the Sumerians, who came from the Zagros Mountains region. Urban centers appeared there nearly contemporaneously with the first cities in Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium. Khuzestan, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, came to constitute the heart of the Elamite kingdom, with Susa as its capital.

ABU/MG