İznik on the way to UNESCO

BURSA

Works for UNESCO have been accelerated in the northwestern province of Bursa's İznik district, which is Türkiye's only candidate for the 2024 UNESCO World Heritage List.

Gabriela Semova Koleva, an expert from the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the advisory body of UNESCO, which officially started the candidacy process for İznik, has come to the town for field research to examine the current state of historical artifacts and their preservation status.

İznik, which is of great importance for Christianity as it hosts two of the most important ecumenical councils recognized by all churches, is home to the Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman-era works that still survive. Now the Metropolitan Municipality is working for the town to be included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

İznik was included in the World Heritage Tentative List in 2014, as it is a unique historical city that carries the tangible and intangible values of civilizations. In order to carry out UNESCO works, İznik Area Presidency was established within the body of the Metropolitan Municipality in 2016.

The management plan prepared by the İznik AREA Presidency was approved by the Coordination and Supervision Board in May 2022 and entered into force. İznik's candidacy file, which was prepared in accordance with the UNESCO implementation guide, was submitted to the Culture and Tourism Ministry in August last year.

The management plan, which was completed within a year, was deemed worthy of being a candidate for the permanent list of UNESCO in the evaluation made by the Culture and Tourism Ministry.

On Sept. 19 last year, the ministry sent the file of İznik, which is now the only candidate from Türkiye for the UNESCO World Heritage List, to the UNESCO World Heritage Center. While UNESCO accepted the file as complete in terms of content and format and officially started the candidacy process. Then the file was sent to ICOMOS.

Along with Kelova, Bursa Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Alinur Aktaş, İznik Mayor Kağan Mehmet Usta, İznik Area President Şehnaz Eraslan Aligüzel, academicians, bureaucrats, representatives of public institutions and organizations, representatives of political parties attended a meeting held on July 11 at the municipality.

Within the framework of a week-long evaluation program in İznik, Koleva will listen to presentations in the candidacy file, and also make visits in the field.

‘A small historic town’

The official website of UNESCO describes İznik as a small historic town still enclosed within its ancient walls surrounded by a beautiful landscape, and continues as follows:

“The historic urban layout of the town is still visible with its grid settlement plan remained since the Hellenistic Period and monumental structures from the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman periods.”

“The city walls, built in the late Roman period, then expanded and strengthened during the Byzantine and Ottoman period, is one of the distinctive features of the city. It surrounds settlements creating an irregular polygon with four monumental and several small gates. The walls were also fortified by more than a hundred towers some of which have inscriptions. In addition, columns and other architectural fragments from the ruins of more ancient edifices have been inserted into the city walls.”

“Served as a capital city to Seljuk, Byzantine and Ottoman states respectively, İznik bears exceptional testimony to early examples of cultural, architectural and artistic accomplishment of these cultures. It hosted the most important examples of early church in the history of Christianity.”

Also mentioning the world famous İznik tiles, the website says, “İznik has been an important center of the production of the ceramic and exerted great influences across the regions for long centuries. At the beginning of its production, the İznik tile was mostly served to the Ottoman imperial palace in Istanbul. After it began to be exported, İznik tile ceramics created a new art movement across the regions. The technical quality and the beauty of its designs have made it one of the most popular art forms and major cultural centers of the world. Today, fine examples of İznik tile can be found in almost all of the entire world’s leading museums.”