TEHRAN – The historical texture of the southwestern Iranian city of Dezful is scheduled to undergo some rehabilitation works, a local tourism official has said.

There has been an agreement between the municipality of Dezful and the cultural heritage department regarding the restoration of some monuments in the historical core of the city that are at risk, Hamidreza Khadem explained on Sunday.

In addition to restoration projects, another way to preserve historical monuments in Dezful is to change their use of them from residential to tourist sites, the official added.

It requires the entry of tourism investors along with cooperation from related organizations, he noted.

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.

ABU/AM