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Via Nostalgia
Western Valley 1
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© Wikimedia Commons contributors / CC BY-SA
UNESCO WHCCulturalInscribed 20211647-002

Western Valley

Component of Cultural Landscape of Hawraman/Uramanat

Overview

The remote and mountainous landscape of Hawraman/Uramanat bears testimony to the traditional culture of the Hawrami people, an agropastoral Kurdish tribe that has inhabited the region since about 3000 BCE. The property, at the heart of the Zagros Mountains in the provinces of Kurdistan and Kermanshah along the western border of Iran, encompasses two components: the Central-Eastern Valley (Zhaverud and Takht, in Kurdistan Province); and the Western Valley (Lahun, in Kermanshah Province). The mode of human habitation in these two valleys has been adapted over millennia to the rough mountainous environment. Tiered steep-slope planning and architecture, gardening on dry-stone terraces, livestock breeding, and seasonal vertical migration are among the distinctive features of the local culture and life of the semi-nomadic Hawrami people who dwell in lowlands and highlands during different seasons of each year. Their uninterrupted presence in the landscape, which is also characterized by exceptional biodiversity and endemism, is evidenced by stone tools, caves and rock shelters, mounds, remnants of permanent and temporary settlement sites, and workshops, cemeteries, roads, villages, castles, and more. The 12 villages included in the property illustrate the Hawrami people’s evolving responses to the scarcity of productive land in their mountainous environment through the millennia.

About Western Valley

Western Valley is a civil parish in the eastern part of the Vale of White Horse district of Oxfordshire, England, to the east of Harwell and the west of Didcot. Historically it was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire. It consists of the western part of the Great Western Park housing estate on the edge of Didcot, and also includes the Valley Park development. The parish was created in April 2023 by splitting the Harwell civil parish where it was crossed by the A34 road, which runs along most of the western boundary of Western Valley, and the Great Western Main Line runs along the northern boundary. It is bordered by the civil parishes of Harwell, Milton and Sutton Courtenay in Vale of White Horse; and by: Didcot and West Hagbourne, both being in South Oxfordshire. The parish lies wholly within the Blewbury & Harwell ward of Vale of White Horse District Council, the Hendreds & Harwell Division of Oxfordshire County Council, and the Didcot and Wantage parliamentary constituency.

Read more on Wikipedia

Selection Criteria

(iii)(v)

Details

Countries
Iran (Islamic Republic of)
ISO Codes
IR
Coordinates
34.9463, 46.1365
View on UNESCO World Heritage Centre
Cultural Landscape of Hawraman/Uramanat← All UNESCO World Heritage Sites
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Western Valley

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Western Valley

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Western Valley