Alamut Castle Up for World Heritage Status

Date: 08 June 2026 - 22:53

News ID: ۱۵۰۷۶۷

TEHRAN — Iran has completed preparations to nominate Alamut Castle and its associated fortresses for UNESCO World Heritage status, with the case scheduled for review in South Korea this August.
Alireza Izadi, director of the national heritage registration office at Iran’s Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts, said in an interview that archaeological excavations, restorations, pathway organization, and community engagement efforts are underway.
“The evaluator requested certain measures,” he said. “We are finalizing them and hope to see the site inscribed on the World Heritage List.”
The nomination file includes Alamut and a network of related fortresses in the Alborz Mountains. The site is historically associated with the Nizari Ismailis — a Shia sect known in Western Crusader accounts as the Assassins.
The story begins in 1090, when Hasan-i Sabbah, a charismatic religious leader, captured the fortress perched on a 200-meter-high rock. From this “Eagle’s Nest,” he and his successors ruled a subterranean state for over 160 years, using political assassination as a strategic weapon against Abbasid, Seljuk, and Crusader leaders.
But modern scholarship has complicated the legend. The British explorer Peter Willey, who led multiple expeditions to the site from 1959, argued that the Assassins were not simply drug-addled killers — a myth popularized by Marco Polo — but skilled architects, capable administrators, and sophisticated water engineers.
Excavations at Alamut have revealed advanced cisterns, storage facilities, and a famed library later destroyed by the Mongols.
That library, along with the fortress, fell in 1256 when Mongol forces overwhelmed the valley, bringing the Nizari state to an end. Today, only ruins remain.
But Iran hopes UNESCO recognition will cement Alamut’s place not as a lair of legends, but as a monument to a complex and often misunderstood chapter of Islamic history.