TEHRAN - A project has been launched to restore and protect one of the centuries-old brick bridges in western Iran: Qaleh-Hatam Bridge.

“A restoration and maintenance project has been commenced on Qaleh-Hatam Bridge of Borujerd (a county situated in Lorestan province),” Seyyed Amin Qasemi, the provincial tourism chief, announced on Thursday.

“A budget of one billion rials ($23,000 at the official exchange rate of 42,000 rials per dollar) has been allocated to the project which includes repair works on the foundation, brick facade, arches, and its cracks,” the official noted.

200-meter-long Qaleh-Hatam Bridge is an early Qajar era (1789-1925) structure built over a small river of the same name. The monument is 2.5 meters in width and it has 14 brick arches.

Lorestan, which is a region of raw beauty, was inhabited by Iranian Indo-European peoples, including the Medes, c. 1000 BC. Cimmerians and Scythians intermittently ruled the region from about 700 to 625 BC. The Luristan Bronzes noted for their eclectic array of Assyrian, Babylonian, and Iranian artistic motifs, date from this turbulent period. Lorestan was incorporated into the growing Achaemenid Empire in about 540 BC and successively was part of the Seleucid, Parthian, and Sasanid dynasties.

AFM/