TEHRAN – A team of Italian archaeologists is scheduled to join Iranian fellows to conduct excavations in the ancient Shami valley, which is situated in the town of Ayapir in Khuzestan province.

The Iranian-Italian Joint Expedition in Khuzestan, held by the RICHT-ICAR, the Centro Scavi Torino (CRAST), and the University of Torino operates since 2008 in this ancient Elymais region, under the co-direction of Vito Messina and Jafar Mehr Kian, the director of Ayapir’s national heritage site has announced. 

However, after the conclusion of the Memorandum of Understanding and the outbreak of the coronavirus, conditions had progressed to the point where excavation of the Shami valley was delayed for five years, Mehdi Faraji said on Saturday. 

The excavations are expected to pave the way to the creation of the first archaeological museum park and the creation of jobs in specialized fields such as tourism, the official added. 

Elymais was an ancient Parthian vassal state located east of the lower Tigris River and usually considered part of the larger district of Susiana. It incorporated much of the area of the biblical region of Elam, approximately equivalent to the modern region of Khuzestan.

Research is conducted on Hellenistic and Parthian archaeological remains to investigate processes of interaction between the Iranian, Mesopotamian, and Greek cultures. 

Surveys, laser scanner acquisitions (conducted for the first time in Iran), and excavations have been so far conducted at Hung-e Azhdar in the plain of Izeh, Kal-e Chendar in the valley of Shami, and Qaleh Bardi, west of the Karun River. 

Tehran and Rome have enhanced cooperation over the past couple of decades, with the arenas of archaeology and cultural heritage at the topmost level.

Archaeology has been proved to be one of the most traditional areas of cooperation between the two nations that celebrated 60 years of joint missions in November 2019.

In an exclusive interview with the Tehran Times last year, Italian ambassador to Tehran Giuseppe Perrone said: “Archaeology is certainly an area for us that is extremely important because it tells the world how our countries are heirs to ancient civilizations and this extremely important because it is part of identity, it’s part of who we are, and it helps us to better connect with one another.”

“And I think because our cultural ties are so deep and so complete in every area, that we do have a responsibility to showcase this richness and to tell people the story of this important connection that has always existed between Italy and Iran in different areas so we look forward to our future projects which are going to be quite amazing,” he stated.

Khuzestan is home to three UNESCO World Heritage sites of Susa, Tchogha Zanbil, and Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System yet it is a region of raw beauty where its visitors could spend weeks exploring. The province is also a cradle for handicrafts and arts whose crafters inherited from their preceding generations.

Lying at the head of the Persian Gulf and bordering Iraq on the west, Khuzestan was settled about 6000 BC by a people with affinities to the Sumerians, who came from the Zagros Mountains region. Urban centers appeared there nearly contemporaneously with the first cities in Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium. Khuzestan, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, came to constitute the heart of the Elamite kingdom, with Susa as its capital.

ABU/AFM