TEHRAN – The first phase of a project to organize the natural-historical landscape of the ancient city of Izeh in southwestern Khuzestan province will soon begin, a local tourism official has said.

Inscribed in UNESCO’s Tentative List of Cultural Heritage, this cultural-natural-historical site encompasses Ashkoft Salman, Koul Farah, Khoung Azhdar, and many other properties dating back to 1300 to 700 years ago.

The project aims to protect and preserve the landscape and prepare it for possible inclusion on UNESCO’s World Heritage list, Mehdi Faraji explained on Wednesday.

Near Izeh on the rocks of Narsi Na (Koul Farah) and Tarisha (Ashkoft Salman) on the western and eastern sides of fertile Izeh plain, talented architects touching up rocks with a bit of artistic decoration to carve divine symbols, drawings of sacrifices and a line of worshippers offering valuable gifts before the king and the king folks.

In the rock paintings, the figures have been painted one after another in a way that they make a background for the perspective. It is the first time that women have been painted together with men in Iranian paintings.

Izeh 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 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.

ABU/AM