QalÕeh Dokhtar, located in Firouzabad, Fars province, is in a critical state

TEHRAN, June 5--Firouzabad in Fars province is the cradle of Sassanid civilization and eligible for registration on the national heritage list.
Expressing this view, Amin Mahmoudzadeh, who has been involved in research studies on Firouzabad’s historical monuments told ISNA that the city has not yet been viewed as a Sassanid city.
For this very reason, a comprehensive plan should be drawn up to conduct complete studies on all its monuments, bas reliefs as well as traditions, he noted.
Mahmoudzadeh suggested that it will be worth investing in Firouzabad, which boasts of a fire temple and fort, and is considered a historical city.
“The destruction of the fire temple has to some extent been checked but Qal’eh Dokhtar is in a critical state,“ he said.
The fort, which has one of the most attractive architectural styles, is believed to be the first Sassanid structure which was constructed by Ardashir I, he said, adding that it is urgent to draft a comprehensive plan to safeguard the monument as it is on the verge of destruction.
Asked why a team has not undertaken concrete maintenance works on the fort, Mahmoudzadeh said that Fars Cultural Heritage and Tourism Department’s Technical Preservation Office has been urged to establish a center for studies on Sassanid hub in Firouzabad, but this has not yet materialized.
Many architects are interested in the projects in Firouzabad but funds have not been made available to this effect, he concluded.

TEHRAN, June 5--National Orchestra is currently rehearsing a new piece which is to be played to the accompaniment of ’Kamancheh’, a traditional instrument resembling a violin.
Announcing this, the conductor of National Music Orchestra, Farhad Fakhreddini told CHN that the orchestra is working on a piece composed by Arsalan Kamkar with themes by Ardeshir Kamkar for Kamancheh.
The concertino for Kamancheh will be performed by National Music Orchestra in cooperation with musician Navid Mostafapour, he said.
“Navid Mostafapour is a young music instrument player who plays the violin and has a command of Kamancheh as well,“ Fakhreddini said.
He said that according to the schedule, National Orchestra will perform the piece in September at Vahdat Hall.

TEHRAN, June 5--Seyhoon Gallery in Tehran will hold an exhibit of the latest works by two masters of calligraphy Gholamhossein Amirkhani and Mojtaba Malekzadeh from June 6-10, said a press release by Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization.
Amirkhani was the founder of Association of Iranian Calligraphers. He will present his work on verses from the holy Qur’an and the sayings of great personalities for the first time.
Malekzadeh will also present his innovative calligraphies which are in Golestaneh style, the classic methodology for calligraphy.
Meanwhile, calligrapher Yadollah Kaboli also plans to hold a solo exhibit of his works at the gallery of Reza Abbasi Museum.
According to CHN, Kaboli will explain his 100 calligraphies which are in cursive writing and lithography of poems by Molana, Sadi, Hafez, Attar Neishabouri and Ferdowsi.
Kaboli said, “Cursive writing is no longer applicable in modern times and is mainly used in the decorative sense. So I decided to initiate a new style of writing, in other words--update it.“
He said that he believes calligraphy helps the artists express their inner feelings and calligrapher creates his works as a review of his inner life.
Kaboli earlier organized two exhibits in Ottawa and Toronto last March.

TEHRAN, June 5--Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will take part in the 22nd International Conference of Mayors of 12 Metropolitan Cities throughout the world which due to be begin in Istanbul, Turkey on July 6, reported ISNA.
This is the first time that Tehran mayor has been invited to the event following Tehran’s accession to the Union of International Architects (UIA) which is sponsoring the conference.
The conference will focusing on ’Market for Architecture’. Preliminary talks on Tehran’s accession to UIA were held three years ago and at the 21st conference in Berlin, Tehran was accepted as a member of the Union.
Iran was the last country to accede to UIA and its membership was even preceded by that of Palestine.

TEHRAN, June 5--Documentary filmmaker, Shahram Derakhshan, is preparing to shoot a documentary film about the Persian Gulf.
According to ILNA, Derakhshan, who is well-known for his documentary film ’My House on the Hills’, said that he will make a documentary film about Persian Gulf as per an order received from Channel 4 of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) TV network.
’Parsa Deraya’, the ancient name for the Persian Gulf will be the title of Derakhshan’s documentary film.
He said that the documentary film will study the Persian Gulf from three aspects--historical aspect, geographic and economic status of the stretch of water and that it belongs to Iran.
“Of course, the process of shooting the film will be prolonged since we will have to visit the southern neighboring states to study the lifestyle of the people in those countries.
Our research studies indicated that there were no Arab population in the neighboring states before the advent of Islam and the area comprised of Persian speaking nations.“
Derakhshan said that he would deal with the factors relating to the origins of southern neighboring states and their cultural heritage.
’Parsa Deraya’ was the name given to the Persian Gulf during the Achaemenid era.

Ismail Kadare

LONDON, June 5--Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare won the first international version of Britain’s prestigious Man Booker literary prize on Friday.
According to AP, Kadare, 69, fled his homeland and received political asylum in France in 1990, a few months before Albania’s communist regime ended. Before that, his French publisher, Editions Fayard, smuggled his work out of Albania, the prize committee said.
“Ismail Kadare is a writer who maps a whole culture--its history, its passion, its folklore, its politics, its disasters,“ said John Carey, chairman of the judging committee. “He is a universal writer in a tradition of storytelling that goes back to Homer.“
Kadare said he hoped the prize, given for his body of work, would give the world a different perspective on the tiny Balkan country and its neighbors.
“I am a writer from the Balkan fringe, a part of Europe which has long been notorious exclusively for news of human wickedness--armed conflicts, civil wars, ethnic cleansing, and so on,“ he said.
“My firm hope is that European and world opinion may henceforth realize that this regionÉcan also give rise to other kinds of news and be the home of other kinds of achievement, in the field of the arts, literature and civilization,“ he said.
The Man Booker International Prize, the creation of which was announced last year, is open to authors of all nationalities whose work has been either written or translated widely into English.
The $109,000 prize will be awarded for a body of work every two years.

TEHRAN, June 5--An Iranian artist Farahnaz Iranpour has woven a carpet called ’Dialogue of Civilizations’, reported ISNA.
The carpet, which measures one and a half meters by one meter, is in 40 colors and has 120 knots per inch depicting symbols of war and friendship in the world community.
The precious carpet also features the holy Kaaba, Beit ul-Moqaddas, Medina Mosque, a map of Iran, sacred names of Allah and Imam Ali (AS). The sun is featured at the top of the historical carpet to represent the universe.
Columns of Takht-e Jamshid (Persepolis), Greek architecture, Rome, Egyptian Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, Taj Mahal, two lions--the symbol of Iranian power--and visage of President Mohammad Khatami, are the other designs woven into the carpet.
The carpet also bears the sentence: “I’ve come from dignified Iran“ and the bottom of the carpet features 50 flags of different nations.
There are two circles resembling the Earth--one on which a sword is seen as symbol of war and the number 2001 is seen on the other as symbol of the year of Dialogue of Civilizations.
President Mohammad Khatami proposed to Millennium Summit of the United Nations in September 2000 to designate the year 2001 as the year of Dialogue of Civilizations to foster peace and friendship among international community.

LUXOR, Egypt, June 5--Buried for nearly 3,600 years, a rare statue of Egypt’s King Neferhotep I has been brought to light in the ruins of Thebes by a team of French archeologists, AFP reported.
Officials said on Saturday that the statue was unusual in that the king is depicted holding hands with a double of himself, although the second part of the carving remains under the sand and its form has been determined by the use of imaging equipment.
Archeologists unearthed the 1.8 meter (six foot) tall statue, as they were carrying out repairs around Karnak Temple in the southern city of Luxor, Egypt’s antiquities chief Zahi Hawass told reporters.
Francois Larche, a member of the team that found the limestone statue of the king, whose name means ’beautiful and good’, said it was lying about 1.6 meters below ground near an obelisk of Queen Hatshepsut, the only woman to have reigned as a pharoah in Egypt, ruling from 1504-1484 BC.
Karnak, now in the heart of Luxor, was built on the ruins of Thebes, the capital of ancient Egypt. The huge temple dedicated to the god Amon lies in the heart of a vast complex of religious buildings in the city, 700 kilometers (435 miles) south of Cairo.
The statue shows the king wearing a funeral mask and royal head cloth or nemes, said Larche.
The forehead bears an emblem of a cobra, which ancient Egyptians used as a symbol on the crown of the pharaohs.