TEHRAN -- The Endowment Deed of Rab-e Rashidi and the Shahnameh of Baysunqur were accepted for examination by the UNESCO International Advisory Committee (IAC) for inclusion on the Memory of the World Register during the 8th meeting of the committee, which is currently underway in Pretoria, South Africa.

The final decision will be made by the end of the meeting on June 15, the chairman of the Iranian National Commission for UNESCO, Farhad Etemadi, told the Persian service of CHN on Monday.

The IAC has not accepted Iran’s fine collection of manuscripts of the Holy Quran dating back to the 11th century for the Memory of the World Register.

The Endowment Deed of Rab-e Rashidi belongs to Tabriz Central Library in East Azarbaijan.

The document was prepared by Khajeh Rashid ad-Din Fazlollah Hamedani, who was the chancellor of Mahmud Gahzan (1271-1304), the most renowned king of the Mongol Ilkhanid dynasty that ruled Iran at that time.

He was also a brilliant doctor and mathematician, who established an academic center known as the Rab-e Rashidi on the outskirts of Tabriz, a city some 600 kilometers northwest of Tehran.

The Shahnameh of Baysunqur is one of three ancient copies of Ferdowsi’s epic masterpiece and is of great value worldwide.

The copy was made in 1430 for Prince Baysunqur (1399-1433) who was the grandson of Timur (1336-1405) the Turkic ruler of Central Asia.

The Shahnameh of Baysunqur is kept in the library of Golestan Palace in Tehran.

The Shahnameh represents the quintessence of aesthetic and literary values of the elite rulers of the Timurid Renaissance who dominated Central and Western Asia in the 15th Century.

The other outstanding copies of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh are the 14th-century Demotte Shahnameh made for the Ilkhanid patron Ghiyath ad-Din Muhammad Oz Beg and the 16th-century Houghton Shahnameh, which are being preserved in other countries.