Pasargad Heritage Foundation (PHF) was established a decade ago outside Iran with the aim of preserving Iranian cultural heritage. For the last nine years, on the advent of each Iranian New Year (which coincides with the beginning of spring), PHF designates a name for the coming new year that signifies certain aspects of its mission. The main purpose of this “name designation” is to emphasize the priceless value of the ancient cultural heritage of Iran that are exposed to constant destruction due to intentional and accidental negligence of the relevant authorities n Iran.

This year PHF has named the New Year of the Iranian calendar as the “Year of Omar Khayyam”. Khayyam has been an internationally known Iranian poet (known by his famous Rubaiyat or Quatrains), philosopher, mathematician and an astronomer. In addition to being known for his poetry or Rubaiyat, he also created one of the three major world solar calendars, based on the ancient Iranian chronometry which was also accepted as a major accurate calendar globally.

Unfortunately, due to his non-religious opinions and his scientific outlook, Omar Khayyam has not been popular with the religious authorities of his country. During the last seven years, Iranian authorities have forbidden teaching about his work, personality and as a result account of life story has been changed.

            Naming the New Iranian year, the “Year of Omar Khayyam” would hopefully bring more recognition and awareness of his contributions not only to Iranian Cultural Heritage a country he was from but also to the human civilization.

During the last decade, Iranians have become gradually more aware of pre-Islamic period of their history despite the policy of Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) tainting that period with obscurity and misleading messages. The result has been the renewed public interest in ancient intangible cultural heritage on the one hand, and a ever-increasing internal tourism and visitors to the ancient Persian sites.

One of the main occasions in this respect is the Iranian New Year, known as Nowruz (or the New Day) that begins at spring equinox. Over the past decade, the number of visitors to sites such as Pasargad and Perspolis has increased ten-fold. While the IRI cultural authorities have not been able to erase the physical reminiscences of the past due to the efforts of Iranians outside the country and the pressure of the international organizations, they have become more and more restrictive against such visits, especially during the Nowruz holidays.

This year the Pasargad site was totally closed to the hundreds of visitors who had come from many parts of the country. They had come to be present around the mausoleum of Cyrus the Great, when the equinox moment arrived and the Iranian New Year began

Cyrus the Great is now recognized as the father of Nation by many Iranians.

As the equinox was to arrive late at night this year, all the lights in the Pasargad area were switched off and the site was totally in darkness. From the early morning, the guards had walked amongst the visitors and had confiscated cameras. Nevertheless, people stayed right behind the fences, singing and chanting. In some instances, there were signs of anger but there was an overall mood of happiness and celebration in the gathering that was shaped in such a surreal setting.  In fact, it has been reported by many news outlets that many historical heritage sites had record number of visitors in the first few days of the New Year and Perspolis reportedly had the highest number of visitors. 

Persepolis which literary means the “City of Persians” was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire.  Persepolis is situated 70 km northeast of city of Shiraz in the Fars Province in Iran.

Dear Friends and Supporters,

As the beginning of spring is fast approaching we once again reiterate our commitment to continue our efforts on behalf of preservation of World National Heritage.  We believe that it is not only our duty to preserve and restore World Heritage for future generations, but we must inform and actively seek support for those sites in countries which have been ignored and forgotten because of ongoing conflict, war, and discrimination.  As our friends and supporters, you have stood by us, supported us and we thank you.  It is only through our collective work that we can accomplish what we must do so that future generations know about the beautiful man-made sites as well as natural sites of our beautiful planet Earth.  Spring once again reminds us of that.  In addition, we would like to wish you a happy and joyful Nowruz, celebration of the beginning of the Persian New Year.  Nowruz coincides with the beginning of spring (March 21^st), a day that has been recognized on the list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity since 2009.

Happy Nowruz and Happy Spring.