Tehran, 29 November 2006 (CHN Foreign Desk) -- Once archeological excavations in the vicinity of Tchogha Zanbil historical site come to an end, Iran’s Ministry of Petroleum will perform a series of seismographic tests in the historic sites of the region to examine their tolerance to shocks and vibrations caused by oil exploration activities.
Announcing this news, Hassan Fazeli-Nashli, director of the Archeology Research Center of Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (ICHTO), said: “We must first study the routes on which the Ministry is intending to undertake oil exploration operations to identify its historic sites. After that we can proceed to talk about the extent of damages such operations may pose to these historical sites.”
Fazeli-Nashli also stressed that the country’s national benefit is what must be considered as the first priority in such programs and further added: “Experts of Iran’s Ministry of Petroleum have assured us that the shocks created by the artificial seismic waves will be less than one magnitude on Richter scale and will therefore cause no harm to the historical sites in the area,” added Fazeli.
While Fazeli believes that seismograph tests will cause no harm to the region’s historic sites, Sadeq Mohammadi, head of Cultural Heritage and Tourism Department of Khuzestan province, says that since there are large numbers of historical sites in Dezful, Sustar, and Susa plain, it is impossible to identify all of them in a few weeks with a small team and therefore no one can tell for sure that all these historic sites are immune to the such geological tests.
The historic site of Tchogha Zanbil holds numerous evidence, mostly from the Elamite civilization (3400 BC-550 BC). Its ziggurat is the only surviving one in Iran and one of the most important remaining evidence of the Elamite Kingdom.
Nine months ago, experts predicting existence of an oil field under the anticline on which this ziggurat is built started digging three routes in Tchogha Zanbil area, the closest one was dug just at a distance of 300 meters from the ziggurat. This issue brought strong reactions from UNESCO and Iranian cultural heritage experts asking the Ministry of Petroleum to immediately stop such destructive operations in the region.
After negotiations between the authorities of Iran’s Ministry of Petroleum and Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization, the Ministry stopped its oil exploration activities in the area and accepted to provide the budget for archeological excavations in the region.
Tchogha Zanbil and its ziggurat were registered by UNESCO in the World Heritage List in 1979. The architecture employed in the ziggurat resembles those of Egyptian pyramids and Mayan temples. This historic site is located southwest of Iran in Khuzestan province, 30 kilometers southwest of Susa, the famous capital of the Elamite Empire.
Soudabeh Sadigh
foreigndesk@chn.ir