Iran: 28 sites Inscribed on World Heritage List

Persian arts of the book conference-the Bodleian Libraries.

The Archaeology of Iran from the Palaeolithic to the Archaemenid Empire (2022) is the first modern academic study to provide a synthetic, diachronic analysis of the archaeology and early history of all of Iran from the Palaeolithic period to the end of the Achaemenid Empire at 330 BC.¹

Persia : Ancient Iran and the Classical World. Ancient Iran, historically known as Persia, was the dominant nation of western Asia for over a millennium (about 550 BC–AD 650), with three native dynasties controlling an empire of unprecedented size and complexity.²

Sites in Iran on the World Heritage List and Year Inscribed

The 1972 World Heritage Convention links together the concepts of nature conservation and the preservation of cultural properties. The Convention recognizes the way in which people interact with nature, and the fundamental need to preserve the balance between the two.³

Iran has twenty-eight sites on the World Heritage list. ⁴

• Armenian Monastic Ensembles of Iran (2008)

• Bam and its Cultural Landscape (2004)

• Bisotun (2006)

• Cultural Landscape of Hawraman/Uramanat (2021)

• Cultural Landscape of Maymand (2015)

• Golestan Palace (2013)

• Gonbad-e Qābus (2012)

• Hegmataneh (2024)

• Historic City of Yazd (2017)

• Masjed-e Jāmé of Isfahan (2012)

• Meidan Emam, Esfahan (1979)

• Pasargadae (2004)

• Persepolis (1979)

• Sassanid Archaeological Landscape of Fars Region (2018)

• Shahr-i Sokhta (2014)

• Sheikh Safi al-din Khānegāh and Shrine Ensemble in Ardabil (2010)

• Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System (2009)

• Soltaniyeh (2005)

• Susa (2015)

• Tabriz Historic Bazaar Complex (2010)

• Takht-e Soleyman (2003)

• Tchogha Zanbil (1979)

• The Persian Caravanserai (2023)

• The Persian Garden (2011)

• The Persian Qanat (2016)

• Trans-Iranian Railway (2021)

The first of five films celebrating the Bodleian Libraries' Persian arts of the book conference.

In July 2021 the Bodleian Libraries hosted a virtual reunion of scholars who spoke about their research into the Persian collections of the Bodleian Libraries.⁵

1. Matthews, Roger, and Ḥasan Fāz̤ilī Nashlī. 2022. The Archaeology of Iran from the Palaeolithic to the Achaemenid Empire. New York, NY: Routledge.

2. J. Paul Getty Museum. 2022. Persia : Ancient Iran and the Classical World. Edited by Jeffrey Spier, Timothy F. Potts, and Sara E. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum.

3. UNESCO. The World Heritage Convention

4. UNESCO in Iran (Islamic Republic of).

5. The Bodleian Conveyor. News about medieval manuscripts, rare books and other special collections from the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford: Persian Arts of the Book conference, July 2021.