Ancient city of Qalhât (Oman)
This site includes the remains of the ancient city of Qalhat, located on the eastern coast of the sultanate of Oman. It is surrounded by inner and outer walls, and we can still see the remains of some necropolis outside the fortifications. Between the 11th and 15th centuries, under the rule of the princes of Hormuz, Qalhât became an important port city on the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. Its archaeological remains today are a unique testimony of its kind on how were the maritime trade of Eastern Arabia to East Africa and India, and even China and Southeast Asia.
Naumburg Cathedral (Germany)
The construction of this cathedral started from 1028 and is considered an exceptional testimony to the art and architecture of the Middle Ages. Romanesque structure, flanked by two gothic choirs, is indicative of a transition style between the late Romanesque and early Gothic. Western jubé, dating from the first half of the thirteenth century, reflecting changes in religious practice and the inclusion of science and nature in the visual arts. This jubé as well as real-size sculptures of the founders of the cathedral, are works of art due to the workshop known as “Master of Naumburg”.
Caliphate city of Medina Azahara in Cordoba (Spain)
This archaeological site includes the majestic ruins of the palatial city built in the mid-tenth century by the Umayyad dynasty that was seat of the Caliphate of Córdoba. After a prosperous period of nearly eighty years, Medina Azahara was sacked during the 1009-1010 civil war of succession that broke the power of the caliphs. The remains of the city fell into oblivion for over a thousand years, until its rediscovery in the first third of the twentieth century. This urban site includes numerous infrastructures -spaces, bridges and hydraulic systems- as well as buildings, decorative elements and objects of daily use that allow to know more thoroughly the epoch of maximum splendor of the disappeared western Islamic civilization of al-Ándalus.
Border archaeological site of Hedeby and Danevirke (Germany)
Hedeby is an archaeological site with vestiges of an old emporium showing street tracings, as well as buildings, cemeteries and a port built during the first millennium of our era and the beginning of the second. The site is surrounded by a segment of the Danevirke, line of fortifications that crosses the Isthmus of Schleswig, which separates the Jutland Peninsula from the rest of the European continent. Due to its exceptional situation between the Franco Empire, to the south, and the Kingdom of Denmark, to the north, Hedeby became an important axis of trade between Scandinavia and the rest of Europe, on the one hand, and between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, on the other hand. The abundance of archaeological material of the site and its excellent conservation have made Hedeby an essential place to be able to interpret the historical and socioeconomic evolution of Europe in the time of the Vikings.
The “sansa” Buddhist monasteries in the mountains of Korea
The Sansa are Buddhist monasteries scattered in the mountains of the southern provinces of the Korean Peninsula. Founded between the seventh and ninth centuries, seven monasteries-temples site members have common features, typically Korean in their spatial distribution. These buildings are formed by a covered central patio, called madang, which is flanked by four buildings: the Buda room, the pavilion, the reading room and the bedroom. Possessors of a large number of architectural elements, objects, documents and exquisite shrines, these monasteries have survived to this day and are still places where daily practice Buddhism.
Chiribiquete National Park (Colombia)
Located northwest of the Colombian Amazon, Chiribiquete National Park is the largest protected natural territory of the whole country. A feature of the site is the presence of tepuis, large high and isolated rock formations, vertical slope and flat tops, which dominate the jungle. On the walls of some 60 caves located at the foot of these elevations there are more than 75,000 paintings whose execution dates back to about 20,000 years before our era. Presumably related to a cult of the jaguar, symbol of power and fertility, these pictorial expressions represent hunting scenes, warriors, dancers and ceremonies. The indigenous communities that are not directly present in this site consider it sacred territory.
Sites hidden Christians in the region of Nagasaki (Japan)
Located northwest of the island of Kyushu, the 12 constituent elements of this serial site are composed of ten villages, Hara castle and cathedral, built between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. All these places are witnesses of the oldest activities of Christian missionaries and settlers at the time of his encounter with Japan, prolonged later stage proscription of Christianity and persecution of their followers, and the phase of revitalization of communities Christians after the end of the prohibition in 1873. This site constitutes a unique testimony of the specific cultural tradition that emerged from the clandestine life of Christians in the Nagasaki region, who secretly transmitted their faith throughout the period of proscription of Christianity in Japan.
Fanjingshan (China)
Located in the Wuling Mountains in Guizhou province (southwest China), Fanjingshan has an altitude of between 500 and 2,570 meters above sea level, which favors the diversity of vegetation types and relief. It is an island of metamorphic rocks in a sea of karst, home to many species of plants and animals that originated in the tertiary period, between 65 million and 2 million years ago. The isolation of the site has led to a high degree of biodiversity with endemic species, such as the Fanjingshan fir (Abies fanjingshanensis) and the flat-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus brelichi), and endangered species, such as the Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus) , the musk deer of the forest (Moschus berezovskii) and the pheasant of Reeve (Syrmaticus reevesii). Fanjingshan has the largest and most contiguous primitive beech forest in the subtropical region.
Twentieth century industrial plant in Ivrea (Italy)
Located in the Piedmont region, the industrial complex of the city of Ivrea has been the laboratory for experimentation and production company Olivetti, dedicated to manufacture typewriters, mechanical calculators and office computers. In addition to a large factory. The site includes a whole series of buildings designed to house different administrative and social services, as well as housing for staff. Designed by Italian architects between 1930 and 1960, this architectural ensemble is a reflection of the ideas of the Community Movement (Movimento Comunità) whose objective was to carry out social projects with a modern vision of the relationship between architecture and manufacturing production.
Victorian neo-Gothic and «Art Deco» ensembles from Bombay (India)
Commercial port city of world importance, Bombay (Mumbai) was in the second half of the nineteenth century scenario of an ambitious development project that resulted in the construction of a set of public buildings Victorian Gothic Revival style around the green expanse of the Great Oval, to which a new set of Art Deco buildings was added at the beginning of the 20th century. The Victorian buildings integrated elements of Indian architecture, such as balconies and porches, adapted to local climatic conditions, and in the other buildings, intended for homes and movie theaters, the aesthetic notions of art deco merged with conceptual and symbolic forms properly Indian, thus giving rise to a unique style in its genre that would later be called Indo-Dico art. These two architectural ensembles are a sample of the stages through which the modernization of Bombay went through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Al-Ahsa oasis, evolving cultural landscape (Arabia Saudi)
Located in the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula, the oasis of Al-Ahsa is a site formed by gardens, canals, springs, wells, a drainage lake, historic buildings, an urban fabric and archaeological sites that represent the traces of occupation sedentary human in the Gulf region from the Neolithic to the present day. This is manifested particularly in the historic forts, mosques, springs, canals and other water management devices. With 2.5 million palm trees, Al-Ahsa is the largest oasis in the world. This unique Geocultural landscape is an outstanding example of human interaction with the environment.
Sassanian archaeological landscape of the Fars region (Iran)
Located in the southeast of the Iranian province of Fars, these eight archaeological sites are located in three geographical areas: Firuzabad, Bishapur and Savestan. These are fortified structures, palaces and urban plans whose construction dates back to the first and last moments of the Sassanian empire, which extended in the region between the years 224 and 658 of our era. The sites include in particular the first capital of the founder of the dynasty, Ardachir Papakan and a city and architectural structures due to his successor, King Shapur Iº. This archaeological landscape, which is based on an optimal exploitation of the natural topography, testifies to the influence of the Achaemenian and partan cultural traditions and exchanges with Roman art, which had an important influence on the architecture and artistic approaches of the Islamic period.
Pimachiowin Aki – “The land that gives life” (Canada)
Covered site boreal forest, crisscrossed by rivers and dotted with lakes and wetlands, Pimachiowin Aki, the “land that gives life” in the language of the Anishinaabeg, is part of the ancestral lands of the indigenous people who live by hunting, Fishing and gathering. The site brings together portions of the territories Anishinaabeg four communities: Bloodvein River, Little Grand Rapids, Pauingassi and Poplar River. The complex network of sites dedicated to subsistence, housing and cultic ceremonies, as well as the main river and lake routes that link, is an exceptional landscape that has materialized the immemorial Indian tradition called ji-ganawendamang gidakiiminaan (“conserve the earth”), consisting of honoring the Creator’s gifts, respecting all forms of life and maintaining harmonious relations with others.
Megalithic site of Göbekli Tepe (Turkey)
«Aasivissuit-Nipisat». Maritime game reserves and glaciers of the Inuits (Denmark)
Located in the central part of the northwest of Greenland, this site has illustrative vestiges of 4,200 years of the history of its indigenous populations that have shaped a whole cultural landscape with its hunting habits of marine and terrestrial animals, its seasonal migrations and its rich intact intangible cultural heritage linked to climate, navigation and medicine.
Characteristic features of this site are the big houses to spend the winter season, the traces of caribou hunting parties and archaeological sites of Inuit culture, both prehistoric and historic. Composed of seven important localities, from the Nipisat, located to the west, to the Aasivissuit, located to the east in the vicinity of the polar cap, the cultural landscape of this site is a sample of the durability of the human cultures of Greenland and of their ancestral seasonal migrations.
