TEHRAN -- Nearly four months after the Bisotun ancient site was registered on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (CHTO) celebrated the event at the site on Friday evening.

A number of Iranian traditional musical ensembles performed during the ceremony, which was followed by speeches by a number of Iranian cultural officials, and a special fireworks show for the approximately 20,000 guests of the program.

Members of the team working on the Bisotun dossier, including Maliheh Mehdiabadi, Asadollah Biranvand, Ramtin Moqaddam, Mojdeh Momenzadeh, Shirin Rowhani, Ali Musavi, Shokufeh Mehdiabadi, Ra’uf Safaiipur, and Badi’-Zaman Gharib, were honored by the CHTO with awards and plaques of appreciation during the ceremony.

Bisotun, an ancient Iranian site bearing bas-reliefs, inscriptions of Darius the Great, and several other monuments, was registered on UNESCO’s World Heritage List on July 13, 2006 during the 30th session of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Bisotun (also known as Bistun) is located in western Iran, 30 kilometers east of the provincial capital Kermanshah, at the foot of the Zagros Mountains.

The area was on the ancient trade route linking the Iranian plateau with Mesopotamia and contains remains from prehistoric times to the Median and Achaemenid eras.