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Bam and its Cultural Landscape

Iran (Islamic Republic of)
Date of Inscription: 2004
Extension: 2007
Criteria: (ii)(iii)(iv)(v)
Kerman Province, Bam District
N29 07 00.6 E58 22 06.5
Ref: 1208bis
Inscription Year on the List of World Heritage in Danger: 2004

Brief Description

Bam is situated in a desert environment on the southern edge of the Iranian high plateau. The origins of Bam can be traced back to the Achaemenid period (6th to 4th centuries BC). Its heyday was from the 7th to 11th centuries, being at the crossroads of important trade routes and known for the production of silk and cotton garments. The existence of life in the oasis was based on the underground irrigation canals, the qanāts, of which Bam has preserved some of the earliest evidence in Iran. Arg-e Bam is the most representative example of a fortified medieval town built in vernacular technique using mud layers (Chineh).

Justification for Inscription

Criterion (ii): Bam developed at the crossroads of important trade routes at the southern side of the Iranian high plateau, and it became an outstanding example of the interaction of the various influences.

Criterion (iii): The Bam and its Cultural Landscape represents an exceptional testimony to the development of a trading settlement in the desert environment of the Central Asian region.

Criterion (iv): The city of Bam represents an outstanding example of a fortified settlement and citadel in the Central Asian region, based on the use mud layer technique (Chineh) combined with mud bricks (Khesht).

Criterion (v): The cultural landscape of Bam is an outstanding representation of the interaction of man and nature in a desert environment, using the qanats. The system is based on a strict social system with precise tasks and responsibilities, which have been maintained in use until the present, but has now become vulnerable to irreversible change.

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