The ancient festival of Yalda and the expectation of Iranians today for light and freedom.

The Yalda Night celebration has been one of the most important celebrations for Iranians for several thousand years.

This celebration is held on the longest night of the year, coinciding with December 21, because ancient Iranians believed that on this night there would be a fierce battle between darkness and light, and when the sun comes, light will win over darkness. They stayed awake this night and waited until morning for the sun to come up, ushering dance and celebration.

This year, Yalda was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List as intangible cultural heritage.

These days, with a revolutionary uprising against the dictatorial and misogynistic religious regime in Iran, they say:

We fight darkness and suffocation to achieve light and freedom.

The Sustainable Development Agenda is centred on people & planet, underpinned by human rights and supported by a global partnership determined to lift people out of poverty, hunger and disease. It will, thus, be built on a foundation of global cooperation and solidarity.

International Human Solidarity Day is:

• • a day to celebrate our unity in diversity;

• • a day to remind governments to respect their commitments to international agreements;

• • a day to raise public awareness of the importance of solidarity;

• • a day to encourage debate on the ways to promote solidarity for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals including poverty eradication;

• • a day of action to encourage new initiatives for poverty eradication.

Background

Solidarity is identified in the Millennium Declaration as one of the fundamental values of international relations in the 21st Century, wherein those, who either suffer or benefit least deserve help from those who benefit most. Consequently, in the context of globalization and the challenge of growing inequality, strengthening of international solidarity is indispensable.

Therefore, the UN General Assembly, convinced that the promotion of the culture of solidarity and the spirit of sharing is important for combating poverty, proclaimed 20 of December as International Human Solidarity Day.

Through initiatives such as the establishment of the World Solidarity Fund to eradicate poverty and the proclamation of International Human Solidarity Day, the concept of solidarity was promoted as crucial in the fight against poverty and in the involvement of all relevant stakeholders. 

Archaeologists from the University of Naples “L’Orientale” have uncovered an ancient mosaic in the Archaeological Park of Pausilypon.

The park is located in Posillipo, which during the Roman period was an elite quarter of Naples in present-day Italy. Posillipo is mentioned in ancient Greek and Roman sources, first named Pausílypon, meaning “respite from worry”.

From the 1st century BC, the coastline of Campania attracted wealthy Romans as a place to build elaborate and grand villas as retreats. This includes the Villa of Vedius Pollio, also known as the Imperial Villa, which had its own 2000-seat theatre on a rocky promontory at the end of the Bay of Naples.

The villa was constructed by Publius Vedius Pollio during the 1st century BC. In later life, Pollio became infamous for his luxurious tastes and cruelty to his slaves – when they displeased him, he supposedly had them fed to lampreys in an eel pond.

Villa of Vedius Pollio – Image Credit : Shutterstock

On one occasion, Augustus was dining at Vedius’ home, when a cupbearer broke a crystal glass. Vedius ordered him thrown to the lampreys, but the slave fell to his knees and pleaded before the emperor. Horrified by the slave’s treatment, Augustus had all of Vedius’s expensive glasses smashed and the eel pool filled in.

On his death in 15 BC, Vedius bequeathed his estate to Augustus, along with instructions to erect a suitable monument on the site. As an imperial property, the villa passed to every emperor until the reign of Hadrian who died in AD 138.

Archaeologists from the University of Naples “L’Orientale” have uncovered a mosaic floor from the villa’s first phase of construction. The mosaic is made from tiny white pieces of tesserae with a double black frame, found purposely buried beneath renovation works commissioned by Augustus after Vedius’s death.

The mosaic was part of a large hall overlooking the sea, which Marco Giglio, of the L’Orientale University of Naples commented: “A stratigraphic dating is still missing, but based on the style, the hall could date back to the late Republican age or Augustan at the latest.”

University of Naples “L’Orientale”

After several years of efforts by supporters and devotees of Iranian culture (in Iran and abroad) and a global campaign, the Persian festival of Yalda has been recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). At the seventeenth session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, hosted by Morocco from 28 November to 3 December four submissions from Iran were recognized and registered in the World Intangible Heritage List. These included Yalda, the art of making and playing the oud, Turkmen embroidery, and silkworm breeding. In the last few decades, the Islamic government of Iran had refused to send the requests for recognition of Yalda, Mehrgan, Sadeh, Chaharbansuri, Sizdeh Be Dar and other Iranian festivals to the UNESCO, while Shia-religious heritage such as Ta’ziyya, Ashura ceremony, Arba’in and other Shia-religious had been submitted.

We consider the occasion of the recognition and listing of the festival of Yalda, which is a symbol of the struggle between light and darkness, which also coincides with the rise of freedom-seeking Iranian people very significant. We wish that the sun of freedom will shine over our land as soon as possible so that the people of Iran will once again be free and live among the advanced people of the world while celebrating the beautiful Iranian culture.

Shokooh Mirzadegi

December 1, 2022

www.savepasargad.com

The Time magazine has crowned the women of Iran as heroes of the year in 2022 for their role as the pioneers of the uprising against the Islamic Republic.

The US magazine has described Iranian women as “educated, secular, liberal” who took to the streets after the death of the young Kurdish Mahsa Amini to say, “they have the freedom to say and wear anything.”

Former Time columnist Azadeh Moaveni in a tribute has written about women’s roles in past protests in Iran that have built toward the current movement.

A number of photos of Iranian women have been mentioned for the tribute. A photo by a woman named Shima is captioned as “I am proud of myself and my country’s women who stand up for their rights in a braver manner than any man in the world.”

Moaveni says “when a generation’s aspirations for freedom appear tantalizingly within reach, the more humiliating the remaining restrictions seem, and the less daunting the final stretch of resistance feels.”

“At this writing, an estimated 400 Iranian protesters have been killed by security forces… Despite measures to block the internet, reports continue to surface of deaths and abuse in custody. After nearly three months, protests on college campuses are not letting up,” read’s the tribute.

Moaveni also adds what’s happening in Iran may look familiar, but it’s different because, today, the aspirations of all swirled into the chants of “women, life, freedom,” a feminist revolt carrying a whole society’s varied grievances.

TEAM OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS HAVE DISCOVERED WHAT MAY BE THE OLDEST KNOWN NARRATIVE SCENE, CARVED INTO A 11,000-YEAR-OLD NEOLITHIC BENCH AT SAYBURÇ IN SOUTH-EASTERN TURKEY.

The discovery, reported by Dr Özdoğan in the journal Antiquity, was made during excavations at Sayburç which began in 2021. The site is located beneath a modern village in the Şanlıurfa Province.

The bench has two carved scenes that show depictions of people interacting with animals. In one scene is a man grasping his phallus with leopards on either side. The second scene shows a squatting man ringing a rattle at a bull.

“These figures, engraved together to depict a narrative, are the first known examples of such a holistic scene,” said archaeologist Dr Eylem Özdoğan, from Istanbul University, “This was a picture of the stories that formed the ideology of the people of that period.”

The site at Sayburç was inhabited during the Neolithic in the 9th millennium BC, a period when people shifted from a mobile hunter-gatherer lifestyle to farming and living in long-term settlements.

Excavations have also uncovered several residential buildings, as well as a large communal structure lined with stone benches along the walls, that may have served as a focal point for gatherings or ritual activities. The researchers believe that the narrative scenes on the bench may depict historical characters or mythical figures that were a key part of the community’s traditions.

“This building has all the characteristic features of the communal structures in the region. In this structure, as in other similar ones, animal and human images were found. However, here the characteristic figures of the period coexist and form a scene,” said Dr Özdoğan.

“Archaeological evidence can provide some insight into the traditions of past societies, but clearer evidence rarely survives, so this discovery is exciting,” said Dr Özdoğan, “Sayburç has very clear evidence in this respect and has the potential to tell us a lot about the Neolithic”.

By its resolution 69/323 of 29 September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly established 9 December as the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime. 9 December 2022 marks the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime, as well as the 74th anniversary of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the “Genocide Convention”), the first human rights treaty adopted by the General Assembly. The Convention signifies the international community’s commitment to “never again” and provides the first international legal definition of “genocide,” widely adopted at national and international levels. It also establishes a duty for State Parties to prevent and punish the crime of genocide. Every year the United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and Responsibility to Protect organizes events to mark this International Day, honoring the victims of genocide and the anniversary of the Convention.

The Genocide Convention

The Genocide Convention (article 2) defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group … “, including:

• • Killing members of the group;

• • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

• • Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

• • Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

• • Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The Convention confirms that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or war, is a crime under international law which parties to the Convention undertake “to prevent and to punish” (article 1). The primary responsibility to prevent and stop genocide lies with the State.

Following weeks of increasingly frequent actions by climate activists targeting works of art in museums around the world, the National Committee in Germany of ICOM, the International Council of Museums, has issued a statement to address the vandalism.

The letter has been cosigned by 92 representatives from cultural institutions, including Laurence des Cars of the Louvre; Miguel Falomir, director of the Prado; Hartwig Fischer, director of the British Museum; Richard Armstrong, director of the Guggenheim; and Martine Gosselink, general director of the Mauritshuis.

Rather than tackling the question of whether the actions—throwing foodstuffs at paintings or gluing body parts to frames—are effective at pressing government officials to enact real climate policy, the statement mainly addresses the potential damage to artworks.

The activists, the letter reads, “severely underestimate the fragility of these irreplaceable objects, which must be preserved as part of our world cultural heritage.” The signatories continue, “As museum directors entrusted with the care of these works, we have been deeply shaken by their risky endangerment.” Nonetheless, the statement ends by emphasizing museums as sites for “social discourse.”

In response to these demonstrations, museums have been beefing up security measures. Berlin venues and the Museum Barberini in Potsdam are now requiring visitors store jackets and bags in lockers. Since news of the actions is often spread via social media, Beate Reifenscheid, chair of ICOM in Germany, told Artnet News that soon, cellphones and cameras may be confiscated as well. Last month, museum guards at the Musée d’Orsay were able to thwart an attack when they noted a woman in a “Just Stop Oil” shirt entering the institution. Protesters have also been fined and sentenced to jail time, though it’s not stopping further actions.

The protests and ICOM’s letter come as more than 90 heads of state and representatives from 190 countries meet in Egypt for COP27, the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, to address pressing issues of global climate change.

Recently national heritage experts in Iran have been speaking out about the condition of archeological artifacts and sites in Iran. According to Mohammad Ismail Esmaili, the head of the Scientific Association of Archeology of Iran, for several years the findings of Bandar Sassanid in the Persian Gulf and the ancient works of Siraf, which have been stored among the treasures of the National Museum, have been left without examination and further studies. According to him, many in the research community are not even aware of their existence.

Esmaili who was the head of the excavation of the ancient port of Siraf, told ISNA news agency that; “The archeological excavations of Siraf before the Islamic Revolution of Iran were jointly carried out by Iranian and British archaeologists, and the artifacts and objects obtained from it were then transferred to the two main museums, the British Museum and the National Museum of Iran. However, after the Iranian revolution while excavations were carried out in the area and many objects were transferred to the Iran National Museum, they have not been studied or investigated in these years. As a result many artifacts have been abandoned”.

According to many archaeologists, the poor handling of heritage site and objects and lack of awareness of some officials and residents of Siraf region, (many of whom are non-natives and are present in the region for work), about the importance of Siraf, has created the grounds for continued destruction of the heritage site which has great importance for Iran and global archeology community.

It seems that the archeology experts who have not been allowed to talk about Iran’s cultural-historical heritage in recent years, are now raising issues that the people of Iran were unaware of until recently.

Celebrated every 10 November, World Science Day for Peace and Development highlights the significant role of science in society and the need to engage the wider public in debates on emerging scientific issues. It also underlines the importance and relevance of science in our daily lives.

By linking science more closely with society, World Science Day for Peace and Development aims to ensure that citizens are kept informed of developments in science. It also underscores the role scientists play in broadening our understanding of the remarkable, fragile planet we call home and in making our societies more sustainable.

The Day offers the opportunity to mobilize all actors around the topic of science for peace and development – from government officials to the media to school pupils. UNESCO strongly encourages all to join in celebrating World Science Day for Peace and Development by organizing your own event or activity on the day.