TEHRAN – A historical statue of the ancient city of Babylon in Iraq has been presented to the governor of the western Iranian province of Ilam, IRNA reported on Saturday.

In a meeting on Thursday, Hussein Falih, the director of the governmental Babel Antiques Organization, presented the historical statue to the governor of Ilam, Hassan Bahramnia, the report added.

Following the meeting, the Iranian official visited the Babylon province’s tourism infrastructure and signed a memorandum of understanding establishing cooperation to develop tourism between the two provinces.

Ruled by Hammurabi, restored by Nebuchadrezzar, and conquered by Cyrus the Great, Babylon is located in the heart of Mesopotamia, between the waters of the Euphrates and the Tigris some 97 kilometers south of Baghdad.

It was the capital of southern Mesopotamia (Babylonia) from the early 2nd millennium to the early 1st millennium BC and the capital of the Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) empire in the 7th and 6th centuries BC when it was at the height of its splendor. I

According to Britannica, when the Persian Achaemenid dynasty under Cyrus II attacked in 539 BC, the capital fell almost without resistance.

Under the Persians, Babylon retained most of its institutions, became the capital of the richest satrapy in the empire, and was, according to the 5th-century-BC Greek historian Herodotus, the world’s most splendid city.

Home to almost half of Iran’s UNESCO sites, western Iran is a land of hospitable people, wild extremes, and wilder history, and it may be an independent traveler's adventure playground. The region also witnessed the rise and fall of many great empires once bordering Mesopotamia, Ottoman Turkey, and Czarist Russia.

From the fecund Caspian coast to the stark, mountainous northern borders, and the crumbling desert ruins of the southern plains, the region hosts everything from paddy fields to blizzards to Persian gardens.

ABU/AM