TEHRAN – The UNESCO-registered Bam citadel, which is the biggest adobe fort worldwide, is prepared to host overnight guests, the director of the World Heritage site has said.“Restoration work has commenced on ten historical houses which are located on the premises of the adobe citadel.  And five of the houses will be hosting overnight guests when fully restored,” IRNA quoted Mohsen Qasemi as saying on Monday.The five other houses will become destinations for sightseers, the official said.The restoration projects are underway in collaboration with the private sector, Qasemi said.The massive fortress and its environs were almost completely brought down to earth due to a devastating earthquake on December 26, 2003.

Since then, the citadel has undergone a series of restoration projects to regain its former beauty.Called Arg-e Bam in Persian, the citadel dated from the Achaemenid period (6th to 4th centuries BC) and even beyond.

The heyday of the citadel 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.According to UNESCO, Arg-e Bam is the most representative example of a fortified medieval town built in vernacular technique using mud layers (Chineh), sun-dried mud bricks (khesht), and vaulted and domed structures.Bam and its Cultural Landscape represents an outstanding example of an ancient fortified settlement that developed around the Iranian central plateau and is an exceptional testimony to the development of a trading settlement in the desert environment of the Central Asian region.

This impressive construction undoubtedly represents the climax and is the most important achievement of its type not only in the area of Bam but also in a much wider cultural region of Western Asia.The cultural landscape of Bam is an important representation of the interaction between man and nature and retains a rich resource of ancient canalizations, settlements, and forts as landmarks and tangible evidence of the evolution of the area.The UNESCO-designated Bam and its Cultural Landscape is situated on the southern edge of the Iranian high plateau close to the Pakistan border.AFM