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.CAIS NEWS© ARCHAEOLOGICAL & CULTURAL NEWS OF THE IRANIAN WORLD |
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Esfahan-Shiraz Railroad still Poses Threat Naqsh-e Rostam
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18 July 2007 |
Edited by Shapour Suren-Pahlav
LONDON, (CAIS) -- Farmers in Hajiabad village in Fars province have offered to sell their farmlands near the historic site of Naqsh-e Rostam to the Office for the Esfahan-Shiraz Railway Project.
This is while none of those involved in the project are ready to respond to
questions about the issue and it seems that the railroad would pass near the
edifice.
According to the Persian service of CHN, Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and
Tourism Organization (ICHTO) has on several occasions declared its opposition to
the implementation of the project. It was earlier agreed that the railroad would
run parallel to the Esfahan-Shiraz highway.
Earlier, Technical Council of ICHTO officially declared its final verdict
calling to safeguard the precincts of Naqsh-e Rostam to the Islamic Republic
Road and Transportation Ministry.
Studies reveal that if the railroad passes near the Achaemenid structure,
tremors will cause the Ka'aba of Zoroaster to be destroyed in the long run. For this
reason ICHTO has opposed the implementation of the project. Persepolis would
also face exclusion from the UNESCO World Heritage list and would be placed in
the Organization’s Endangered World Heritage Site should the railway project
come into force. On the other hand, the project would highly reduce the chance
for world registration of another historic evidence in the area, namely the
Naqsh-e Rajab.
Islamic republic officials of Fars province have agreed to set up a committee
made up of representatives from Governor General’s Office, ICHTO and Road and
Transportation Ministry to study changing the route of the railroad.
Naqsh-e Rostam contains number of Achaemenid monuments, such as Ka'aba Zoroaster
and mausoleums of the Achaemenid Emperors, one of which is expressly declared in
its inscription to be the tomb of Darius the Great, the Achaemenid king of kings
who ruled over the Persian Empire between 549 and 486 BCE. The three other tombs
besides that of Darius are believed to belong to Xerxes I, Artaxerxes I, and
Darius II. Kaaba of Zoroaster bears number of
inscription belonged to Parthian and Sasanian dynastic eras. On the trilingual
inscription, written in the Arsacid-Pahlavi, Sasanian-Pahlavi, and Greek
languages, describes the war between Iran and Rome in which Iranians under
Shapur I defeated Romans and their emperor Valerian was captured in 260 and died
in captivity. In addition there are seven gigantic rock carvings right
beneath the mausoleums which are dated to the Sasanian dynastic era (224–651
CE).
In recent years the Islamic republic has stepped up its' cultural-cleansing of the pre-Islamic Iranian heritage under the banner of development projects. The regime has undermined and destroyed large number of major cultural landmarks associated with the ancient Iranian civilisation, particularly the Median, Achaemenid, Parthian and Sasanian dynasties, to deprive the Iranian nation of their rich ancient heritage - the recent example of such a policy was the inundation of Sivand Dam in April 16.
The constructions of the new railroad which would ensure the destruction of the Achaemenid Kaaba of Zoroaster and other monuments in Naqsh-e Rostam is in accordance with the cultural cleansing orchestrated by the Taliban-style regime in Iran.
The
hatred of the extremist clerics for the pre-Islamic Iran and Iranian nation in
general is such that they, like the Taliban of Afghanistan who destroyed the
towering Buddhist sculptures at Bamiyan, intend not only to eradicate the
ancient heritage, but even to erase all traces of its existence in that land. In
their determination to rid Iran of the pre-Islamic past and obliterate its very
memory, not only is a crime against Iranian peoples, but humankind in general.
One of the most-notorious clerics in Iran, Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali, who was renowned for his brutality and mass executions in post-revolutionary Iran, had hopelessly tried to bulldoze and level-down Persepolis. However, the inhabitants of the nearby city of Shiraz set up barricades and risked their lives by laying down in front of the bulldozers – so saving the ancient site from destruction. Khalkali had intended to continue on to attack the mausoleum of Ferdowsi, as the greatest Persian composer of the greatest Persian epic, Shahnameh, but was dissuaded by the strongly negative public reaction at Persepolis.
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"History is the Light on the Path to Future" |
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Encyclopaedia Iranica
The British Institute of Persian Studies "Persepolis Reconstructed"
The British Museum
The Royal Asiatic Society
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