TEHRAN – A landscape project will soon commence on the UNESCO-registered Bam Citadel and its surroundings in southeast Iran.  

The project is planned to be carried out in collaboration with the municipality, city council and the private sector, the director of the World Heritage Affairs Office at the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts, Farhad Azizi said on Saturday. 

A budget of 24 billion rials (about $571,000 at the official rate of 42,000 rials) has also been allocated to the exterior lighting of the massive mud-brick stronghold, the official added. 

Bam Citadel was flattened by an earthquake in 2003. Back in October, Mohsen Qasemi, a senior cultural heritage expert announced that the overall restoration of Bam Citadel is eighty percent complete.

“Some 80 percent of the reconstruction and rehabilitation work has been completed on Arg-e Bam (“Bam Citadel”) and the whole project is expected to be completed in about seven years,” he explained. 

Bam and its Cultural Landscape is located on the southern edge of the Iranian high plateau in Kerman Province. It’s highly regarded as an outstanding example of an ancient fortified settlement.

According to UNESCO, the origins of the citadel can be traced back to the Achaemenid period (6th to 4th centuries BC) and even beyond. The ensemble was on crossroads of important trade routes as well in its heyday sometime between the 7th to 11th centuries.

The big and sprawling Kerman province has been a cultural melting pot since antiquity, blending Persians with subcontinental tribe dwellers. It is home to myriad historical sites and scenic landscapes such as Bazaar-e Sartasari, Jabalieh Dome, Ganjali Khan Bathhouse, Malek Jameh Mosque, and Shahdad Desert to name a few.
 
ABU/AFM