mytravels

category :: cultural


Deer Stone Monuments


Located on the slopes of the Khangai Ridge in central Mongolia, these deer stones were used for ceremonial and funerary practices. Dating from about 1200 to 600 BCE, they stand up to four metres tall and are set directly in the ground as single standing stones or in groups, and are almost always located in complexes that include large burial mounds called khirgisüürs and sacrificial altars. Covered with highly stylized or representational engravings of stags, deer stones are the most important surviving... Read More

Gaya Tumuli


This serial property includes archaeological cemetery sites with burial mounds attributed to the Gaya Confederacy, which developed in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula from the 1st to the 6th century CE. Through their geographical distribution and landscape characteristics, types of burials, and grave goods, the cemeteries attest to the distinctive Gaya political system in which polities existed as autonomous political equals while sharing cultural commonalities. The introduction of new forms of tom... Read More

Jericho


Located in the Jordan Valley, the property is an oval-shaped tell, or mound, that contains the prehistorical deposits of human activity, and includes the adjacent perennial spring of ‘Ain es-Sultan. A permanent settlement had emerged here by the 9th to 8th millennium BC, due to the fertile soil of the oasis and easy access to water. Skulls and statues found on the site testify to cultic practices amongst the Neolithic populations living there, and the Early Bronze Age archaeological material shows signs of ... Read More

Odesa


The Historic Center of Odesa, part of the Black Sea port city developed on the site of Khadzhybei, is a densely built-up area, planned according to classicism canons, characterized by two- to four-storey buildings and wide perpendicular streets lined with trees. Historic buildings reflect the rapid economic development of the city in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The site includes theatres, bridges, monuments, religious buildings, schools, private palaces and tenement houses, clubs, hotels, banks, shop... Read More

Ancient Kingdom of Saba


The Landmarks of the Ancient Kingdom of Saba, Marib, is a serial property comprising seven archaeological sites that bear witness to the rich Kingdom of Saba and its architectural, aesthetic and technological achievements from the 1st millennium BCE to the arrival of Islam around 630 CE. They bear witness to the complex centralized administration of the Kingdom when it controlled much of the incense route across the Arabian Peninsula, playing a key role in the wider network of cultural exchange fostered by ... Read More

Great Spa Towns of Europe


This transnational property comprises 11 towns, located in seven European countries: Baden bei Wien (Austria); Spa (Belgium); Františkovy Lázně (Czechia); Karlovy Vary (Czechia); Mariánské Lázně (Czechia); Vichy (France); Bad Ems (Germany); Baden-Baden (Germany); Bad Kissingen (Germany); Montecatini Terme (Italy); and City of Bath (United Kingdom). All of these towns developed around natural mineral water springs. They bear witness to the international European spa culture that developed from the ear... Read More

Danube Limes


It covers almost 600km of the whole Roman Empire’s Danube frontier. The property formed part of the much large frontier of the Roman Empire that encircled the Mediterranean Sea. The Danube Limes (Western Segment) reflects the specificities of this part of the Roman Frontier through the selection of sites that represent key elements from road, legionary fortresses and their associated settlements to small forts and temporary camps, and the way these structures relate to local topography.

Colonies of Benevolence


The transnational serial property encompasses four settlements; cultural landscapes with one colony in Belgium and three in The Netherlands. Together they bear witness to a 19th century experiment in social reform, an effort to alleviate urban poverty by establishing agricultural colonies in remote locations. Established in 1818, Frederiksoord (the Netherlands) is the earliest of these colonies and home to the original headquarters of the Society of Benevolence, an association which aimed to reduce poverty ... Read More

Lower German Limes


Following the left bank of the Lower Rhine River for approximately 400 km from the Rhenish Massif in Germany to the North Sea coast in the Netherlands, the transnational property consist of 102 components from one section of the frontiers of the Roman Empire, which in the 2nd century CE, stretched across Europe, the Near East, and North Africa, over 7,500 km. The property comprises military and civilian sites and infrastructure that marked the edge of Lower Germany from the 1st to 5th centuries CE. Archaeol... Read More

Sítio Roberto Burle Marx


Situated west of Rio de Janeiro, the site embodies a successful project developed over more than 40 years by landscape architect and artist Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994) to create a “living work of art” and a “landscape laboratory” using native plants and drawing on Modernist ideas. Began in 1949, the garden features the key characteristics that came to define Burle Marx’s landscape gardens and influenced the development of modern gardens internationally. The garden is characterized by sinuous forms, exube... Read More

Chinchorro Culture


The property consists of three component parts: Faldeo Norte del Morro de Arica, Colón 10, both in the city of Arica, and Desembocadura de Camarones, in a rural environment some 100km further south. Together they bear testimony to a culture of marine hunter-gatherers who resided in the arid and hostile northern coast of the Atacama Desert in northernmost Chile from approximately 5450 BCE to 890 BCE. The property presents the oldest known archaeological evidence of the artificial mummification of bodies with... Read More

Quanzhou


The serial site of Quanzhou illustrates the city’s vibrancy as a maritime emporium during the Song and Yuan periods (10th - 14th centuries AD) and its interconnection with the Chinese hinterland. Quanzhou thrived during a highly significant period for maritime trade in Asia. The site encompasses religious buildings, including the 11th century AD Qingjing Mosque, one of the earliest Islamic edifices in China, Islamic tombs, and a wide range of archaeological remains: administrative buildings, stone docks tha... Read More

Sudanese Style Mosques


The eight small adobe mosques, at Tengréla, Kouto, Sorobango, Samatiguila, M’Bengué, Kong and Kaouara are characterized by protruding timbers, vertical buttresses crowned by pottery or ostrich eggs, and tapering minarets. They present an interpretation of an architectural style thought to have originated around the 14th century in the town of Djenné, then part of the Empire of Mali, which prospered from the trade in gold and salt across the Sahara to North Africa. Particularly from the 16th century, the sty... Read More

Cordouan Lighthouse


The Lighthouse of Cordouan rises up on a shallow rocky plateau in the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the Gironde estuary, in a highly exposed and hostile environment. Built in white limestone dressed blocks at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, it was designed by engineer Louis de Foix and remodelled by engineer Joseph Teulère in the late 18th century. A masterpiece of maritime signalling, Cordouan’s monumental tower is decorated with pilasters, columns modillions and gargoyles. It embodies th... Read More

Nice


The Mediterranean city Nice, near the Italian border, bears witness to the evolution of the winter climatic resort due to the city’s mild climate and seaside location at the foot of the Alps. From the middle of the 18th century, Nice attracted an increasing number of aristocratic and upper-class families, mainly British, who took to spending their winters there. In 1832, Nice, then part of the Kingdom of Savoy-Piedmont-Sardinia, adopted a regulatory urban plan aiming to make it attractive to foreigners. Sho... Read More

Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt


The Darmstadt Artists’ Colony on Mathildenhöhe, the highest elevation above the city of Darmstadt in west-central Germany, was established in 1897 by Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse, as a centre for emerging reform movements in architecture, arts and crafts. The buildings of the colony were created by its artist members as experimental early modernist living and working environments. The colony was expanded during successive international exhibitions in 1901, 1904, 1908 and 1914. Today, it offers a testi... Read More

ShUM Sites of Speyer, Worms and Mainz


Located in the former Imperial cathedral cities of Speyer, Worms and Mainz, in the Upper Rhine Valley, the serial site of Speyer, Worms and Mainz comprise the Speyer Jewry-Court, with the structures of the synagogue and women’s shul (Yiddish for synagogue), the archaeological vestiges of the yeshiva (religious school), the courtyard and the still intact underground mikveh (ritual bath), which has retained its high architectural and building quality. The property also comprises the Worms Synagogue Compound, ... Read More

Ramappa Temple


Rudreshwara, popularly known as Ramappa Temple, is located in the village of Palampet approximately 200km north-east of Hyderabad, in the State of Telangana. It is the main Shiva temple in a walled complex built during the Kakatiyan period (1123–1323 CE) under rulers Rudradeva and Recharla Rudra. Construction of the sandstone temple began in 1213 CE and is believed to have continued over some 40 years. The building features decorated beams and pillars of carved granite and dolerite with a distinctive and py... Read More

Dholavira


The ancient city of Dholavira, the southern centre of the Harappan Civilization, is sited on the arid island of Khadir in the State of Gujarat. Occupied between ca. 3000-1500 BCE, the archaeological site, one of the best preserved urban settlements from the period in Southeast Asia, comprises a fortified city and a cemetery. Two seasonal streams provided water, a scarce resource in the region, to the walled city which comprises a heavily fortified castle and ceremonial ground as well as streets and houses o... Read More

Trans Iranian Railway


The Trans-Iranian Railway connects the Caspian Sea in the northeast with the Persian Gulf in the southwest crossing two mountain ranges as well as rivers, highlands, forests and plains, and four different climatic areas. Started in 1927 and completed in 1938, the 1,394-kilometre-long railway was designed and executed in a successful collaboration between the Iranian government and 43 construction contractors from many countries. The railway is notable for its scale and the engineering works it required to o... Read More

Hawraman/Uramanat


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 ha... Read More

Padua’s Frescos


This property is composed of eight religious and secular building complexes, within the historic walled city of Padua, which house a selection of fresco cycles painted between 1302 and 1397 by different artists for different types of patron and within buildings of diverse functions. Nevertheless, the frescos maintain a unity of style and content. They include Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel fresco cycle, considered to have marked the beginning of a revolutionary development in the history of mural painting, as we... Read More

Porticoes of Bologna


The serial property comprises twelve component parts consisting of ensembles of porticoes and their surrounding built areas, located within the Municipality of Bologna from the 12th century to the present. These portico ensembles are considered to be the most representative among city’s porticoes, which cover a total stretch of 62 km. Some of the porticoes are built of wood, others of stone or brick, as well as reinforced concrete, covering roads, squares, paths and walkways, either on one or both sides of ... Read More

Jomon Prehistoric Sites


The property consists of 17 archaeological sites in the southern part of Hokkaido Island and northern Tohoku in geographical settings ranging from mountains and hills to plains and lowlands, from inland bays to lakes, and rivers. They bear a unique testimony to the development over some 10,000 years of the pre-agricultural yet sedentary Jomon culture and its complex spiritual belief system and rituals. It attests to the emergence, development, maturity and adaptability to environmental changes of a sedentar... Read More

As Salt


Built on three closely-spaced hills in the Balqa highland of west-central Jordan, the city of As-Salt, was an important trading link between the eastern desert and the west. During the last 60 years of the Ottoman period, the region prospered from the arrival and settlement of merchants from Nablus, Syria, and Lebanon who made their fortunes in trade, banking, and farming. This prosperity attracted skilled craftsmen from different parts of the region who worked on transforming the modest rural settlement in... Read More