TEHRAN – The Iranian city of Shiraz will host the coordination meeting of the UNESCO World Heritage-related Category 2 Institutes and Centers from September 10 to 12, IRNA reported.

The intangible cultural heritage has been adopted as the dominant theme for the event that will also have an eye on the 2003 Convention for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage.

It will convene directors and representatives from Category 2 headquarters in Algeria, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Japan, Peru, and South Korea as well as UNESCO regional offices in Bangkok, Beijing, Venice, and Havana, the report said.

The event is jointly organized by Shiraz Municipality and the Category 2 Center of Iran. The latter is tasked with conducting research for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage in West and Central Asia.

UNESCO says that each center is associated with specialized fields of activity and a set of functions in order to accomplish those shared objectives.

Category 2 centers are running under the auspices of the UNESCO, established and funded by member states to contribute to the achievement of UNESCO’s objectives in global, regional and interregional scales.

Iran’s entries to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list include radif of Iranian music, traditional skills of carpet weaving in Kashan, ritual dramatic art of ta’ziye, music of the Bakhshis of Khorasan, and Qalishuyan rituals of Mashhad-e Ardehal near Kashan.        

Moreover, dramatic story-telling called naqqali, traditional skills of building and sailing Lenj boats in the Persian Gulf, and traditional skills of carpet weaving in Fars are amongst other admissions to the prestigious list.

The Photo above depicts traditional Lenj vessels being built in southern coasts of Iran. Traditional skills of building and sailing Iranian Lenj boats in the Persian Gulf added to the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2011.

AFM/MG