TEHRAN –A permanent handicrafts marketplace opened to the public in the southwestern Iranian city of Dezful on Wednesday, a local tourism official has said. 

Establishing such a market seems necessary to support crafters in offering their handmade products and to take advantage of the region’s potentials in this sector, CHTN quoted Hamidreza Khadem as saying on Thursday. 

Currently 38 handicrafts fields are being practiced by the local artisans across the ancient city, the official added. 

Located in Khuzestan province, Dezful is known as the “City of Rockets,” since it was attacked over 200 times by rockets during the Iran-Iraq war.

Dezful derives from two words: dezj (fortress) and pol (bridge), which combined means “bridge to the fortress.”

Khuzestan is home to three UNESCO World Heritage sites, namely 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 contemporaneous 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.

Iranian handicrafts 

The value of Iran’s handicrafts exports stood at $400 million during the first ten months of the current Iranian calendar year 1401 (Mar. 21, 2022– Jan. 20, 2023). 

The Islamic Republic exported some $320 million worth of handicrafts during the past Iranian year (1400).

According to the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts, Iran has the most cities and towns registered with the World Crafts Council (WCC), followed by China with seven, Chile with four, and India with three designated ones.

The WCC-Asia-Pacific Region designated Shiraz, Malayer, Zanjan, and the village of Qasemabad in January 2020, bringing the total number of craft cities and towns in Iran from 10 to 14. Shiraz has been dubbed “the world city of [various] handicrafts.”

Malayer became a center for woodcarving and carved wood furniture on a global scale. The designation “world city of filigree” was given to Zanjan. The village of Qasemabad, which is renowned throughout the country for its traditional costumes, was also promoted to a major handicrafts center on an international scale.

Iraq, Afghanistan, Germany, the United States, and the coastal states of the Persian Gulf are among the countries that traditionally import ceramics, porcelain, hand-woven clothing, personal jewelry, and semi-precious stones from Iran.

ABU/