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Agricultural activities at the historical site
of ?Graveyard Town? in the suburbs of Firouzabad, Fars province,
has led to the destruction of cultural heritage sites in the area,
Iran Daily reported.
Announcing this, Azamollah Kazemi, an architect
of Fars province?s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Department, told
ISNA that ?Graveyard Town?, which spreads over an area of 400
hectares, includes relics dating back to the Elamite, Achaemenid,
Sassanid eras as well as subsequent periods up to the modern time.
He said that no archeological excavations have
been conducted in the area so far.
Kazemi said given that the area served as the
capital of the Sassanid dynasty, there is a strong likelihood of
discovering inscriptions bearing useful information about the
area.
Excavation in the area will help archeologists
obtain information about Sassanid monuments in Firouzabad as well
as the architectural features of fire-temple built during that
period.
According to Kazemi, foreign archeological teams
carried out excavations at Qala Dokhtar between 1973 and 1979 in
addition to undertaking preliminary steps to safeguard the area.
However, they did not continue the work following the victory of
the Islamic Revolution, he added.
Of course, the experts did their best to prevent
the destruction of Firouzabad historical site, but, they could not
go on with maintenance of the site due to shortage of fund. The
fence they built around the site also collapsed during the
earthquake which hit the area in 1993.
Some 70 percent of maintenance works of the
ancient fire-temple and 40 percent of the repairs at Qala Dokhtar
have been carried out before the executive works were suspended
because of the lack of fund.
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