TEHRAN –A total of seven historical objects have recently been confiscated from a smuggler in Andika, southwestern Khuzestan province, a senior police official in charge of protecting cultural heritage has said.

Recovered from the house of the smuggler, the objects date back to the pre-Islamic era, Ramin Maknavi announced, ISNA reported on Wednesday. 

Some bronze dish and a metal sword were among the discovered object, the official added. 

The accused was traced and lastly arrested after the police received reports from cultural heritage aficionados about the illegal possession of the relics, he noted. 

The police detained and surrendered the culprit to the judicial system for further investigation, he explained. 

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/