TEHRAN– On Tuesday, a guided tour has taken a number of students to the UNESCO-registered Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System in Khuzestan province on the occasion of Research Week, the director of the World Heritage site has said.

The tour aimed to introduce the students to the World Heritage site as much as possible, and provide them with the necessary training and basic knowledge about the cultural heritage, CHTN quoted Mohammadreza Bahadori as saying on Wednesday.

A major task for such sites is to introduce and redefine the valuable heritage to various groups, he added.

Through the explanations of the site’s experts, students from urban and rural schools learned some of the historical and functional background of Shushtar’s water structures during this visit, he mentioned.

The ancient hydraulic system comprises bridges, weirs, tunnels, canals, and a series of ancient watermills powered by human-made waterfalls. It is named after an ancient city of the same name with its history dating back to the time of Darius, the Great, the Achaemenid king.

The property is as rich in its diversity of civil engineering structures and constructions as in the diversity of its uses (urban water supply, mills, irrigation, river transport, and defensive system). The Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System testifies to the heritage and the synthesis of earlier Elamite and Mesopotamian know-how; it was probably influenced by the Petra dam and tunnel and by Roman civil engineering.

“The hydraulic system has been considered a Wonder of the World not only by the Persians but also by the Arab-Muslims at the peak of their civilization,” according to the UN cultural body.

Furthermore, one of its main canals is a veritable artificial watercourse that made possible the construction of a new town and the irrigation of a vast plain, at the time semi-desert.

UNESCO says that the Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System demonstrates outstanding universal value as in its present form, it dates from the 3rd century CE, probably on older bases from the 5th century BC. It is complete, with numerous functions and large-scale, making it exceptional.

ABU/AM