Iran International
Airstrikes in Iran have damaged several historic landmarks, including UNESCO-listed sites, raising concern among cultural experts and officials about the protection of heritage during the conflict.
UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre has confirmed damage to several sites on its global heritage list, though the full extent remains unclear, its director Lazare Eloundou Assomo said.
Several of the affected buildings carried the Blue Shield emblem, an international symbol used to identify protected cultural heritage sites under international law and often described as the “Red Cross for cultural heritage.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi later criticized UNESCO’s response. “It's natural that a regime that won't last a century hates nations with ancient pasts. But where's UNESCO? Its silence is unacceptable,” he wrote on X.
Among the sites affected is the historic Golestan Palace, a Qajar-era complex in central Tehran added to the UNESCO list in 2013.
According to Afarin Emami, director of the Golestan Palace World Heritage complex, blast waves from airstrikes on March 1 shattered windows and damaged delicate mirrorwork in several halls.
Images published by Iranian media show damaged crystal chandeliers and wooden doors and windows torn from their frames.
Emami said museum objects inside the palace were not harmed because they had been moved to secure storage after earlier tensions raised concerns about possible escalation.
The nearby Grand Bazaar of Tehran, a vast network of corridors forming a key part of the capital’s historic fabric, also sustained damage. Other buildings affected in Tehran include the former Senate Palace and the historic former Police Headquarters.
Several days later, further blast waves reportedly caused damage in Isfahan, one of Iran’s most important historic cities.
Images circulating online show shattered windows, cracked walls and fallen mirrorwork at multiple sites, including the Safavid-era Chehel Sotoun Palace and the Ali Qapu Palace in the Naqsh-e Jahan area.
The primary target appeared to be the provincial governor’s office building in the nearby Rashk-e Jahan complex, which was reportedly directly bombed. Ashraf Hall, a Safavid structure known for its gold-decorated ceilings, sustained significant damage, with photographs showing fallen tiles scattered among office furniture.
Elsewhere, Iranian media reported damage in Sanandaj, where several historic mansions lost sections of plaster decoration, mirrorwork and wooden doors. In northern Iran, reports suggest the Safavid-era Safi Abad Palace in Behshahr may have been affected by nearby strikes targeting a military radar facility, though no confirmed photographs have been released.
Near the historic Falak-ol-Aflak Castle in western Iran, the provincial cultural heritage office located within the castle’s protected zone was destroyed and five staff members and heritage protection personnel were reportedly injured. The fortress itself was not damaged.
The incidents have triggered heated debate among Iranian social media users, with some criticizing the government’s own handling of cultural heritage protection.
One user wrote on X: “At least write that the Islamic Republic should not build military bases next to heritage sites when you write that a historic monument was damaged by Israeli or US attacks.”
Others argued the destruction must be viewed in the broader context of the conflict. “We can rebuild buildings,” one commenter wrote. “Save your tears for the 40,000 people who were killed.”
Some groups, including the Jurists’ Council for a Democratic Iran, have called on all sides to respect international conventions protecting cultural heritage during armed conflict.
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.