The UNESCO world heritage committee added on Thursday the Old Nisa site of ancient settlement to the United Nations world heritage list.

The Old Nisa site of ancient settlement was set up 22 centuries ago as a central king's sanctuary of the Arsak the Great dynasty descendants, the founders of the great Parthian empire. It is one of the central tourist sites of Turkmenistan. Nisa features on international tourist catalogues and Central Asian guides as a unique monument of the ancient history and arts. A priceless collection of rithons, marble sculptures, silver and stone artifacts from the king's treasury of Nisa decorate the rooms of the National Museum of Turkmenistan, and the ruins of temples in which these masterpieces were discovered attract an ever increasing amount of attention of archaeologists from all over the world for many years now.

As the Turkmenistan.ru's correspondent reports, the Old Nisa was added in 2003 to the list of 100 most important historical monuments of the world heritage of "World Monuments Fund", the largest international organization in the sphere of preservation of historical sites.

In 2005, the UNESCO world heritage committee decided to include Turkmenistan's Kunyaurgench (known as Gurgandzh in ancient times), the largest archaeological park in the north of Turkmenistan, on the left bank of the old bed of Amudarya river, in the list of world heritage. The park is a vast zone of protected landscape with many ruins and monuments adjoining the contemporary city of territory Kunyaurgench.

In 1999, another historical-archaeological monument of Turkmenistan, the ancient Merv with world-famous Sultan Sandjar mausoleum, was added to the UNESCO world heritage list.

At present, the UNESCO world heritage list accounts for 848 monuments of culture and sites of natural heritage.