<
 
 
 
 
×
>
You are viewing an archived web page, collected at the request of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) using Archive-It. This page was captured on 11:01:24 Mar 22, 2022, and is part of the UNESCO collection. The information on this web page may be out of date. See All versions of this archived page.
Loading media information hide
English Français

Cultural Landscape of Maymand

Cultural Landscape of Maymand

Maymand is a self-contained, semi-arid area at the end of a valley at the southern extremity of Iran’s central mountains. The villagers are semi-nomadic agro-pastoralists. They raise their animals on mountain pastures, living in temporary settlements in spring and autumn. During the winter months they live lower down the valley in cave dwellings carved out of the soft rock (kamar), an unusual form of housing in a dry, desert environment.  This cultural landscape is an example of a system that appears to have been more widespread in the past and involves the movement of people rather than animals.

Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0

Paysage culturel de Maymand

Maymand est une zone semi-désertique isolée au bout d’une vallée à l’extrémité sud des montagnes du centre de l’Iran. Les habitants sont des semi-nomades qui pratiquent l’agro-pastoralisme. Ils élèvent du bétail sur les pâturages des montagnes où ils ont des établissements provisoires du printemps à l’automne. Pendant les mois d’hiver, ils vivent plus bas dans la vallée, dans des maisons troglodytiques creusées dans la roche tendre de kamar (tuf), ce qui est un habitat inhabituel dans un environnement désertique. Ce paysage culturel témoigne d’un système qui semble avoir été plus répandu autrefois et qui implique le mouvement des personnes plutôt que celui des animaux.

Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0

موقع ميمند الثقافي

ميمند منطقة شبه صحراوية معزولة تقع في نهاية وادٍ، عند الطرف الجنوبي من الجبال الموجودة في وسط إيران. وسكان ميمند هم من شبه الرُحّل، ويمارسون الزراعة ويربون المواشي في مراعي الجبال حيث يعيشون في مساكن مؤقتة من فصل الربيع حتى فصل الخريف. وفي أشهر فصل الشتاء، يعيش سكان ميمند في أسفل الوادي، في منازل بدائية محفورة في صخور كمار الجيرية المرنة، وهي منازل نادراً ما تُصادف في بيئة صحراوية. ويشهد هذا الموقع الثقافي على نظام يبدو أنه كان أكثر انتشاراً في الماضي ويرتكز على تنقل الناس أكثر مما يرتكز على تنقل الحيوانات.

source: UNESCO/ERI
Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0

梅满德
梅满德是伊朗中部山脉南端终点谷底尽头孤立的半沙漠地区。居民是从事农牧业的半游牧民族。他们在山区牧场放牧,春秋两季住在山区临时定居点里,冬季则住在山谷底部在软岩(卡玛尔凝灰岩)上凿出的窑洞里,这种窑洞在干旱的沙漠地区非常罕见。这一文化景观呈现了一套过去曾经非常普遍的游牧系统,主要是为了适应人的迁移,而不是动物的迁徙。

source: UNESCO/ERI
Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0

Культурный ландшафт Мейманда
Мейманд представляет собой изолированный полупустынный район в глубине долины в южных отрогах центрального горного массива Ирана. Население Мейманда ведет полукочевую жизнь и занимается земледелием и скотоводством, переселяясь с весны по осень во временные жилища на горных пастбищах. На зиму они спускаются в долину и живут в домах-пещерах, выдолбленных в мягких скальных породах (туфах), довольно необычный вид жилищ в сухих пустынных условиях. Культурный ландшафт Мейманда свидетельствует о существовании специфичной системы, ранее, по-видимому, более распространенной, характерной кочевыми перемещениями, преимущественно, людей, а не животных.

source: UNESCO/ERI
Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0

Paisaje cultural de Maymand
Situado en la parte más meridional de la cordillera central del Irán, este paisaje cultural abarca una zona aislada semidesértica en el extremo de un valle. Sus habitantes llevan una vida seminómada, practicando la agricultura y el pastoreo. Desde la primavera hasta el otoño residen en asentamientos provisionales establecidos en las praderas de las zonas montañosas altas, donde hacen pastar a sus ganados. Luego bajan al valle y se instalan durante los meses de invierno en viviendas troglodíticas excavadas en terrenos de toba (kamar), que constituyen un hábitat excepcional en un medio natural desértico. Este paisaje cultural atestigua la existencia de un sistema de trashumancia, bastante extendido al parecer en otros tiempos, en el que el desplazamiento de los pastores prevalece sobre la migración del ganado.

source: UNESCO/ERI
Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0

メイマンドの文化的景観

source: NFUAJ

Cultuurlandschap van Maymand

Maymand is een op zichzelf staand halfdroog gebied, liggend aan het einde van een vallei op het zuidelijkste punt van het centrale gebergte van Iran. De dorpelingen zijn semi-nomadische veehouders. Ze houden hun dieren op de bergweiden en leven in tijdelijke nederzettingen in de lente en de herfst. Tijdens de wintermaanden leven ze dieper in de vallei, in grotwoningen die uitgehouwen zijn in de zachte steen (kamar), een ongebruikelijke vorm van huisvesting in een droge woestijnachtige omgeving. Dit cultuurlandschap is een voorbeeld van een systeem dat in het verleden op grotere schaal lijkt te zijn toegepast, en dat draait om het zich verplaatsen van groepen mensen, meer nog dan van dieren.

Source: unesco.nl

  • English
  • French
  • Arabic
  • Chinese
  • Russian
  • Spanish
  • Japanese
  • Dutch
Cattle breeding in Sar-e-Aqol © Maymand Cultural Heritage Base
Outstanding Universal Value

Brief Synthesis

Maymand is a small and relatively self-contained south facing valley within the arid chain of Iran’s central mountains. The villagers are agro-pastoralists who practice a highly specific three phase regional variation of transhumance that reflects the dry desert environment. During the year, farmers move with their animals to defined settlements, traditionally four, and more recently three, that include fortified cave dwellings for the winter months. In three of these settlements the houses are temporary, while in the fourth, the troglodytic houses are permanent.

Sar-e-Āghol are the settlements on the southern fields used from the end of winter until late spring. The houses come in two different types. Markhāneh are circular houses, semi-underground to shelter them from the wind, with low dry stone wall and a roof covering of wood and thatch of wild thistles. Mashkdān houses are above ground and built with dry stone walls and a conical roof of branches. Some of the buildings for cattle are much more substantial and have barrel vaulted brick or stone roofs.

Sar-e-Bāgh houses are sited near seasonal rivers and used during summer and early autumn. When the weather is hot the structures are light: dry stone walls support a roof structure of vertical and horizontal timbers covered with grass thatch. In inclement weather more substantial houses are constructed with taller stone walls and a conical roof. Cattle are collected in roofless stone enclosures. Around these summer villages are the remains of terraces for growing wheat and barley, and the remains of mostly now ruined water-mills. Pits for boiling and straining grape juice are still in use as are Kel-e-Dūshāb which are used to contain the resulting Dūshāb or syrup of grapes.

The winter troglodytic houses are carved out of the soft rock, in layers of up to five houses in height. Around 400 Kiches or houses have been identified and 123 units are intact. Each house has between one and seven rooms, traditionally used for living, and storage.

In the exceptionally arid climate, traditionally every drop of water needed to be collected from a variety of sources such as rivers, springs and subterranean pools and collected in reservoirs or channelled through underground qanats to be used for animals, orchards and small vegetable plots. The community has a strong bond with the natural environment that is expressed in social practices, cultural ceremonies and religious beliefs.

Criterion (v): The Cultural Landscape of Maymand, a small mainly self-sufficient community within one large valley, reflects a traditional three phase transhumance system with unusual troglodytic winter housing in a dry desert environment. It is a good example of a system that appears to have been once more widespread, and involves the movement of people rather than animals to three defined settlement areas, one of which is cave dwellings.

Integrity

All the components of the landscape reflecting the agro-pastoral system and permanent and seasonal dwellings are within the boundaries. The components are however vulnerable, in relation to the resilience of the transhumance systems. This continues for the present, with a decreasing population. Although the small irrigated fields survive in outline they no longer are used to grow staple crops for self-sufficient families. Improved communications, such as with nearby towns means that people can look after their animals and vegetable plots in different ways than previously. As a result far fewer people are over-wintering in the troglodytic villages than a generation ago and there are far fewer families using the seasonal settlements.  Only around 90 out of 400 of the troglodytic dwellings are inhabited during the winter. A few more of them are inhabited only during weekends, when people return from the nearest town to where they have moved. The number of Āghols has reduced in the last few years due to the decreasing numbers of pastoralists. In the property there remain at least 8 Āghols that are still living and used by families who have sufficient cattle to ensure their survival. There are two others that are abandoned. Most of the seasonal buildings are largely re-constructed each season and are therefore a reflection of a traditional practice that has persisted for generations. But this is a practice that is highly vulnerable and could disappear within a generation, if the pastoral way of life is not attractive or sufficiently viable for the younger generation.

Authenticity

There is little doubt of the authenticity of most of the components of the property, in terms of the landscape itself and the traditional practices that interact with it, as reflected in troglodytic houses, seasonal shelters and water structures. Some of the latter have been adapted in recent decades and only two of the qanats survive. The troglodytic structures have undergone extensive restoration over the past ten years.

Authenticity is also vulnerable to a weakening of traditional practices which could lead to a reduction in the size of the community that manages the landscape, to more families only living in the valley during the summer months, and to the impacts of tourism in particular on the troglodytic dwellings.

Protection and management requirements

The troglodyte village is registered in the National Heritage List, and is protected under the Historical Monument’s Protection and Conservation Law. It is understood that the whole property will be legally protected upon inscription in line with other inscribed properties in Iran.

The property is also protected by other cultural and natural Iranian laws, such as the Iranian Civil Law that forbids transferring the ownership of public monuments and prohibits private ownership of significant cultural property. The Islamic Penal Law also protects the property, as no restoration, repair, renovation, transfer, or change of functions, etc. of registered monuments can be done without the Iranian Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization approval. The area is also under regulation concerning natural heritage protecting the natural environment.

Since 2001 the Iranian Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization has assumed responsibility for the property and a Maymand Cultural Heritage Base has been established, with close links to the Maymand village council and the Maymand village administration office. The local council manages the day-to-day affairs in collaboration with the Maymand Cultural Heritage Base. There are currently adequate local resources for administration

A Management Plan in the initial nomination set out regulations for the property area. For the buffer zone, large scale plans that may include industrial complexes and development projects such as highways, etc. must be agreed by the Iranian Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organisation.

Details of an augmented plan, arising from a workshop that aimed to encourage sustainable development for the local communities by opening up engagement between them and national and regional agencies, have been provided. This will focus on raising awareness of the legacy that the communities sustain, and put in place a sustainable development framework based on support and encouragement for innovative ways to add value to local produce, as well as some official support such as for dredging qanats and vaccinating livestock. This sustainable development plan has only recently been framed and clearly more work will be needed to translate it into an action plan with an agreed timescale and necessary resources.

Three other plans have also been developed by University Departments. These are: Evaluation of Ecological Capabilities, Agro-Pastoral lifestyle description and comparative study, and Research project on the impact of Water Sources and Farming. In addition a local team is engaged in mapping the activities of the farming year.

In spite of these initiatives and the engagement of the local community in a dialogue on how to sustain the dynamic landscape practices, there is nevertheless still concern that such a small community of some 70 families can form a sustainable and resilient unit that will keep the Maymand agro-pastoral system alive, even if in the future it does not survive in neighbouring valleys. Authenticity and integrity are thus vulnerable to a weakening of traditional practices.

Sustainable development will undoubtedly need to harness appropriate tourism opportunities. A plan is needed to set out how tourism might be managed in such a way that it supports rather than detracts from local traditions and avoids turning the village into a museum and contributing to the demise of agro-pastoral traditions.
Activities (1)