Iran Ready to Restore Ctesiphon Palace - CAIS Archaeological & Cultural Daily News of Iran©

Iran’s Cultural Heritage Organization (ICHO) announced its readiness to restore the Ctesiphon palace in Khwarvaran province, today known as Iraq, which is developing cracks. The palace boasts the highest single-span brick arch in the world.

The Deputy ICHO Director Mohammad Moheb Ali said the monument is a prominent Iranian heritage site now located in modern Iraq.

“The ICHO is ready to send experts to consider the conditions of the monument and restore it after coordination with the foreign ministry,” Moheb Ali said. AFP recently filed a report on the worrying conditions of the palace and cracks in its brick arch.

Located on the northeast bank of the Tigris River, 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Baghdad, Ctesiphon was founded on the site of an older town, Opis, in the second century BC by Parthian Emperor Mithridates the Great. Later Ctesipon was the first Sasanian foundation in this urban zone, named Veh-Ardashir, “the beautiful (good) city of Ardashir,” after its founder, the Sasanian king of kings Ardashir I (AD 224-241). Ctesipon was the royal residence, imperial and administrative center, and a commercial and agricultural hub of the empire in the densely populated Sasanian province of Khwarvaran, Babylonia/Asoristan. Although Ctesiphon served only as a winter residence for Sasanian Emperors who spent summers in the cooler highlands of the Ianian plateau, it remained the capital and coronation city of the Sasanian empire from its foundation by Ardashir I until its conquest by Muslim armies in AD 637. In 637, Arabs after the massacring the Iranians they looted Ctesiphon and the other Iranian cities. This was the beginning of their conquest of Iran.

Ctesiphon owes its fame to the remains of its grand vaulted hall, the Taq-i Kisra, with a span of 25.5 meters (84 feet), a depth of 48 meters (158 feet) and a height of 37 meters (122 feet), a record for a single-span brick arch.

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