Iran offers to help repair damaged ancient Iraq monument

Iran’s Minister of Cultural Heritage, Ali Asghar Mounesan, has said that Iranian archaeologists are willing to offer help in reconstructing a damaged ancient Persian structure in Iraq which collapsed earlier this year, having sustained damage on at least one occasion before.

“The problems Iraq has been going through are impeding the protection of artifacts and historical monuments,” Mounesan said.

“We are looking forward to paving the way for Iran to help restore Taq Kasra and save this historic building from collapse.”

The famed Taq Kasra arch, also known as the Arch of Ctesiphon after the ancient city of Ctesiphon, located in today’s Al-Madain approximately 25 miles south of Baghdad, was built in 550CE during the reign of the Sasanian King Khosrow I. Ctesiphon originally served as the winter capital of the Parthian and the later Sasanian empires.

The pre-Islamic structure was part of a larger Sasanian-era palace and is considered to be the largest single-span, unreinforced brick vault arch in the world.

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According to UNESCO, the four metres of the arched roof collapsed due to heavy rains. The Director-General of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, Ayad Hamza, described the site as being in “dangerous and critical” condition requiring immediate maintenance and repairs to prevent further collapse.

Iran’s Mehr news agency reported: “Social media activists and cultural heritage lovers have also criticized the Iraqi government’s neglect of the monument, disapproving the poor governmental performance in maintaining it.”

Despite years of talks between Iranian and Iraqi officials to jointly restore the structure, no such concerted effort has been realised. Both countries have also recently sought to have the Taq Kasra listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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