unesco world heritage sites

The Four Seasons

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█   In 2013, a com­mit­tee from the United Nations opened its 37th session in Siem Reap, Cambo­dia, then concluded while in Phnom Penh, Vietnam. A short list for world-heritage site des­ig­na­tions was released: All have historical heft, and each imparts the gift of time travel. The criteria for induction, worked out by the United Nations Edu­ca­tion­al, Scientific and Cul­tural Organi­zation (UNESCO), is a parcel unique on Earth.

█   For 3,000 years, people have lived in this dry desert in central Iran, adapting to and in symbiosis with the environ­ment. A 2006 census of the Cultural Landscape of Meym­and showed at that time a population of 673, living in 181 families: nomadic agro-pastor­al­ists, moving twice a year and bringing live­stock, to tend to orchards and small vegetable plots. In spring they go up the moutains, where their animals can graze, and live in stone-walled houses with thatched roofs of wild thistle. Winter is spent in the valley, their houses hand-dug from soft rock. Due to the harsh terrain, water is precious, so rivers and springs are diverted to reservoirs, while wells can bring water up from subter­ranean pools.

█   The Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany was begun during the 1400s, and was altogether a new type of princely residence. Built in a pastoral setting, the gardens became stewards to their surroundings, while the residents lived for knowledge, the arts, and leisure = humanism. First, though, the builder had to survey the grounds, adjust the landscape, lay down lawns, put up villas, all in a quest for resonance with nature = renaissance.

█   This 2013 cultural property is in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Ringed by mountains: an ancient city, guarded by walls and gates, containing several palaces, an astronomical and meteorological observatory, and a tomb complex, and became a welcoming place for philosophers to gather. The Historic Monuments + Sites in Kaesong are twelve separate structures and sites (which together make a geomantic map), to tease out how neo-confucian manners, buddhist feelings and taoist rites trickled into native customs, to show assim­i­la­tion of the cultural, spiritual and political values, spanning five centures, of the various states that existed on the Peninsula.

█   The masterpiece in absolutism was awarded in 2013 to Bergpark Wi­lhelm­shöhe, a german palace in Kassel on 590 acres. The garden is part french-formal, part italian-baroque, both can peek into the windows of the neo-classical residence, but shun an artificial ruin of a gothic-revival castle. The out­door feature is an irresistible theatre of water, devised in long-ago 1689. Hydro-pneumatic devices and reservoirs use under­ground pipes to direct water flow, and manual labor is used to control the locks. The resulting orchestral maelstrom, abetted by rustling leaves, is made up of basins, ponds, grottoes, a lake, fountains, waterfalls of various heights, and a gone-wild rapid. Surveying all this from atop of the grounds is Hercules, 70.5m (231ft) tall and sheathed in copper, who came in 1701 and never left.

█   This ancient city, Tauric Chersonese and Its Chora, is a preserved site in Ukraine, and an example of sensible land organization by a polis 'city'. Tauric Chersonese is a settlement made up of six urban neighbor­hoods, and chora 'retangular plots of equal sites' is the land alotted each household.

█   This city sat along the Silk Road, became a trading gate­way between east and west, where goods and cultural cus­toms changed hands and minds. Bolgar His­tor­ical and Archae­ological Com­plex contains epochs of history.

█   When salt deposits were discovered under Poland, beginning in the 1200s, royal interest ensured this precious spice be granted native patronage. Now two of them, the Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines, is the epitome of tech­no­log­i­cal human progress. Together, the two salt mines cover a walking distance larger than from Krakow to Warsaw: 252km (157mi).

█   First it was a port in the Fiji Islands, then was a hub for sea routes from all directions, traveling through Melanesia on their way somewhere else, and became a town offering rest and recreation for sailors, and respite ships. The oldest social orga­ni­za­tion in Poly­nesia is here, so is the oldest hospitality house. The oldest Masonic lodge in Oceania (b.1875) still holds meetings, where they discuss articles in the Fiji Times (b.1869), still being printed. Festooned with mango trees and coconut groves, Lekuva seeped into history sometime during the 1950s.

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█   Where headwaters from five rivers originate is the land that gives life, Pimachiowin Aki, part of the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabeg people of Manitoba, Canada. They have a lifelong practise of 'keeping the land' ji-ganawendamang gidakiiminaan, making seasonal outings to commune with the goddesses and gods of the Fish, the Hunt, and the Gathering.

█   Looking the same today as it did some four million years ago, Tianshan Xinjiang manifests ongoing biological and ecological evolutionary processes. This 2013 natural property is a powerhouse combo made up of three parks and three nature reserves, each with their own values, and sits on land touching Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, the Uyghur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang), and China.

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eight polish tserkvas:
Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Chotyniec)
St Michael the Archangel (Turzańsk);
St Michael the Archangel (Smolnik);
St James the Less (Powroźnik);
Virgin Mary's Care (Owczary);
St Paraskevia (Kwiaton);
St Parskevia (Radruz);
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█   Seen in the proper light, these churches in the Car­pathian Region, the Wood­en Tserkvas of Poland and Ukraine, are depictions of the creation of the universe. To this day, parishioners go on high holy days and practice an unbroken liturgy, in buildings of horizontal-log construction on stone foun­da­tions, with three-sectioned interiors topped with domes - built between the 1500s to 1800s: renaissance to post-alchemy.

eight ukrainian tserkvas:
Birth of the Theotokos (Nizhny Werbiaz);
St Archangel Michael (Uzak);
Ascension (Jasin);
Holy Spirit (Rohatyn);
St George (Drohobych);
Holy Trinity (Zolkiew);
St Demetrius (Matkow);
Pentecost (Potylicz).
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█   Founded by pearl merchants in long-ago Qatar, on the shores of the Persian Gulf, this archaeological site recipient offers a singular insight into a history of the underwater pearl. Summer was its season, and folks up and down the coast, as well as from inland, would head for 'pearl town' to seek work: to dive and fetch them; to buy and trade them; or to protect the town and its wealth from outside attacks.

When a successful attack in 1811 finally managed to sack the enterprise, residents moved inland and rebuilt, abandoning their home, which was later discovered buried in sand. Al Zubarah is comprised of a fortified town, an inner and an (earlier) outer wall, screening walls, two forts overlooking the harbor, and a sea canal.

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█   The land­mark in this natural prop­er­ty can be seen from miles around: a glacier-clad ex­tinct vol­cano rising up on semi-arid savan­nah grass­lands in the tropics. Mount Kenya, known to the Kikuyu tribespeople as mountain of brightness, was designated a world heritage site back in 1997, the second highest peak in east Africa. The site was extended in 2013 and renamed as Mount Kenya-Luwa Wildlife Conservancy, to include a traditional route for migrating African elephants, already roaming through different kinds of forests, home to rhinos and buffalos, baboons and bushbucks, white-tailed mongoose, x-size hogs and bush-pigs, leopards and hyenas.

█   This complete and coherent group recipient is the Hill Forts of Rajasthan in northwestern India: six defense settlements spread across the rocky terrain of two mountain ranges, built by rajput (8th to 18th century) warriors who made use of natural defenses in the landsdcape to rein­force their might. These six forts are:

Amber, built with four gates facing the four cardi­nal directions. The princi­pal buildings followed the contours of the hill and impor­tant rooms had a view of the lake.
        Access to Chit­taur­garh, draped over a hill­top, and the grandest of the six forts, can only be gained by passing through seven gates.
        Built of yellow sand­stone, Jaisalmer has a single gateway. The defensive walls, seen against the back­drop of the yellow desert, blended during a certain time of day, and turned invisible.
        The defensive wall of Kum­bhal­garh has seven stone gate­ways, each leading to a pas­sage that zigzagged and pock­marked by small side cells.
        Sitting high above dense jungles, Ran­tham­bore has stonewalls, towers, strong­holds, and four gates. The main approach is a steep ascent, with stairs cut into rocks.
        Built where two rivers meet, Gagron sat on a flat hilltop and watched over trade routes.

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█   In the Mountains of the Pamirs, where the highest ranges on the Eurasian continent meet, there is a high-altitude park that undergoes frequent strong earthquakes. Seldom visited, sparsely inhabited hence unspoiled, Tajik National Park is otherwise home to endemic fish, indian goose, siberian ibex, marco-polo sheep, brown bear, and snow leopard – co-existing in a land of rivers (170), lakes (400), and glaciers (±1,000).

█   Spewing lava consistently for centuries, a natural property since 2013, Mount Etna in Sicily is alive, and a favorite haunt for volcanologists, near enough to monitor “ongoing volcanic landform processes” as they occur.

█   There is a vast farm ranging across mountains in southern Yunan, its current condition shaped by countless hands for more than a thousand years, turning mountainsides into terraces, and each terrace a rice paddy plot. Honghe Hani Rice Terraces is irrigated by springs flowing into four trunk canals, which branch off into 392 ditches, the whole being maintained communally. The water comes from springs, which originate from clefts in granite rocks that channel rainfall collecting in sandstone deposits. The sandstone traps the water and releases it gradually as springs.

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█   Built for a sultan as a compound set within a rose garden, the Golestan Palace Complex is the real deal: seventeen palaces; a tall tower affording pano­ramic views; wind towers to funnel upper air so as to promote an indoor breeze. Built with geometric precision to achieve spacial volume and organi­zation, the rose garden is split in two: a smaller one on a north-south axis, with passageway to a larger garden, along a northeast to south­west axis.

Fujisan

Taking on its iconic form some five thou­sand years ago, becom­ing the locus for ascet­ic bud­dhism of the shin­to school (be­cause blessed by superb sym­me­try?), Mt Fuji stands alone in the cen­ter of Japan, and has in­spired art­ists for many cen­tur­ies. Rec­og­nized as a “sacred space”, in 2013 Mt Fuji be­came a UNESCO World Heri­tage Site.

Mt Fuji, in shin­to cos­mol­o­gy, is occu­pied by a kami “spirit”. The Japan­ese have im­bued the world, un­to a blade of grass, each with its own kami. Prin­cess Kono­hana­sa­kuya-hime is the kami of Fuji­san, pres­ent wher­ever cherry blos­soms are found on Mt Fuji: Fujisan-konohana-sokuahime “Fuji caus­ing the blos­som to bright­ly bloom”. The fuji­ko branch of shin­to adds to the moun­tain a soul, en­dow­ing it with exist­ence. Mean­while, bud­dhists re­gard the vol­cano as a gate­way to an­oth­er world. The summit is ringed with eight peaks, and a hike to visit all of them can take about half a day.

Hiking to the sum­mit to greet the morn­ing Sun is a com­mon occur­rence, and for as long as any­one can remem­ber, there is and al­ways has been, a choice of only four trails lead­ing to the top. There is a term, as in “My gorai­ko was ob­scured by clouds and rain blot­ted out the hori­zon”. For lucky ones, though, the al­pine sight of morn­ing peek­ing over the hori­zon, the depart­ure of night, can trig­ger a pal­pable shift, “some­thing we all know hap­pens reg­ular, see but not see ...” – gorai­ko, shinto speak.

There is an im­mense pine for­est, a lethal leafy laby­rinth, ring­ing the north-west base of Mt Fuji. Aokiga-hara-jukai “the sea of trees” is alarm­ing­ly dark dur­ing day­time, and likened to a walk on the sea bot­tom. The for­est floor still and silent, the tree­tops sway­ing and musi­cal – leaves play­ing with wind and sun­light. Thought to be haunt­ed, the for­est is a sui­cide des­ti­na­tion spot.

The shinto em­bod­i­ment of fire, hearth god­dess Kamuy-huci, visits Mt Fuji once a year, wear­ing bud­dhist beads for a pow­wow with the kami of Fuji­san. They meet at a trail stop on the way to the sum­mit, in the vil­lage of Yoshi­da, rife with rus­tic rumors of inter­est­ing in­sights in­to a psycho­analysis of fire. Yoshi­da hosts an an­nual autumn fire fes­ti­val, which is over and done with in one night and fol­low­ing day, involv­ing prac­tises to con­clude the climb­ing season, and there is festival foot­age.

As a stand-in for the future-per­fect land­mark, Mt Fuji has has been fea­tured in numer­ous sci­fi movies. “The X From Out­er Space”(1967) be­gins with a heli­copter land­ing in full view of the moun­tain, whose peak has al­so served as a stag­ing ground for count­less mutants born af­ter the Sec­ond World War, begin­ning with God­zil­la the fire-breath­ing giant lizard. Ready to fight and best them are super­men and super­wom­en in bat­tle-suits, or else heroic be­ings from oth­er plan­ets, time trav­el­ers, as well as a legion of cy­borgs and robots. The first to show up was Gold­en Bat aka Phanta­man, who was sent for­ward in time to the year 1930 by Atlan­tis science. A few were born with fire pow­ers: sib­lings Shiro and Leyu Yoshi­da; bud­dhist Izumi Yasu­nari. Tet­suo Shi­ma (Akira) came to light in 1988, harbor­ing the seeds of des­truc­tive psy­chic powers, while Iron Man (aka Tet­suo) was an 1989 cy­borg with a trag­ic sex life.

Fujisan is a rela­tive­ly young and ac­tive vol­cano, six­ty-two miles south-west of Tok­yo. It sits on a slab of rock at the “trip­le junc­tion” position, radi­at­ing tec­ton­ic­al­ly down to­wards the Fili­pino Plate, west t­owards the Eur­asian Plate, and east to meet with the North Ameri­can Plate – the Okhotsk. There have been twen­ty-one recorded erup­tions, the last was an 8.4 on Octo­ber 26, 1707, des­troy­ing seven­ty-two houses and three bud­dhist tem­ples; power­ful enough to blow a scoop out at the tip, form­ing a new crater on the east­ern flank. A meteor­ologi­cal read­ing, from Feb­ru­ary 4, 2013, is typ­ical of current times:

The vol­cano re­mains calm. How­ever, an in­creased num­ber of small quakes near and un­der Mt Fuji are visi­ble on our lat­est data plot of near­by earth­quakes (with­in 30 km radius). While all of these are very small and the num­ber is cer­tain­ly not alarm­ing, the vol­cano re­mains inter­est­ing to watch. ...