TEHRAN – A restoration project on a centuries-old Armenian cemetery in the ancient city of Masjed Soleiman, in southwestern Khuzestan province, has come to an end, an archeologist has said.

 The graveyard dates back to the period of oil exploration and belongs to the Armenians who inhabited the region during that era, Ziba Salehi explained on Sunday. 

The project involved repairing the cemetery walls and organizing the gravestones, she added. 

Masjed Soleiman was the site of the first oil well in Iran and the Middle East.

Khuzestan is home to three UNESCO World Heritage sites of Susa, Tchogha Zanbil, and Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System, yet it is a region of raw beauty that 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 contemporaneously 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