1060 of 1092 WHS have been reviewed by our community.
The Natural-Historical Landscape of Izeh (T)
Zoë Sheng Chinese-Canadian in NZ - 11-Mar-19
I camped at this site - even in winter it was nice and cold and the morning sun greeted me along with a few dozen sheep bleating. The local community of shepherds surely didn't mind. I thought I would spend a long time looking at the site in the morning but actually it is just a few rock carvings. In retrospective I would have taken a torch to look at them in the dark and continue driving to a hotel.
There are only a carvings, five in total I think although I only found 4. Most of them are unimpressive, the one with the king and queen are kind of impressive but what I think this site comes down to is that the local government thinks this is important and hasn't seen enough rock carvings around the world
Read OnTushpa/Van Fortress, the Mound and the Old City of Van (T)
Walter Switzerland - 14-Mar-19
Tushpa/Van Fortress (Van Kelasi in Turkish) and the Old City of Van is a site is located in the city of Van, which is easily reached by cheap domestic flights from Istanbul. It in the western outskirts of the city, near the lakeshore, visible from far away. Entrance to the site is on its western end, which is inconvenient if walking from Van city. Entrance fee is 6 TL. The site can also be entered from the East, but necessitates jumping above a small wall, and walking uphill.
Tushpa was the capital city of Urartian Kingdom, from the ninth to the sixth centuries BC. The kingdom was centered around Lake Van and built the first fortress on a high conglomerate mound about 100 meters high and 1.4 km long on the southern shore of Lake Van. It was a very fertile region and was occupied front Early Bronze Age. Successive states (Armenian, Romans, Sassanid, Byzantines, Arab, Seldjuk, Ottoman, Russian) built and rebuilt fortresses of top of its predecessor. Nowadays, foundations, walls, fortifications, tombs and buildings of those different ages mix with one another, including 10-meters high Ottoman fortifications (top of my picture) and older mud-and-stone-bricked fortification from the Uratian time (just below on the left of my picture)
Read OnBardejov Town
Matejicek Czechia - 14-Mar-19
Bardejov historical center belongs to places that I like in eastern Slovakia, and I visit it at every opportunity. Though result of extensive restorations to medieval appearance (especially roofs of townhouses), I do not take it as a tourist trap.The old photo (from 2003) shows a view on the central square with municipal house in the middle. One side of the square is formed by late gothic St. Egidius basilica. The interior contains the set of late gothic sculptures. However, even more prominent sets of wooden scupltures can be found in nearby Levoča and Spišská Sobota.
Read OnSites funéraires et mémoriels de la Première Guerre mondiale (Front Ouest) (T)
Nan Germany - 13-Mar-19
"You want to go where?" my aunt asked me. "La Grande Tombe de Villeroy, it's just next to Meaux, we can pass it on our way to the airport."
You need to know my mother's family is from Meaux, a town East of Paris. And indeed when coming from the East (Epernay) and heading to the world's worst airport (Charles de Gaulles), you pass within a few kilometers of the site.
My aunt asked again what precisely I wanted to see there. "A Nécropole, must a big thing" I said. Now my French is okay, but not perfect, so my aunt was trying to make sure she didn't misunderstand me. Eventually, she accepted that I meant the tomb. But she corrected me: "It's not a big thing, it's a small sign along the road." I couldn't quite fathom this information (Nécropole, Grande Tombe?), so I quickly googled the site and indeed: La Grande Tombe is pretty tiny. Most people in nearby Meaux wouldn't even know about it
Read OnKoguryo Kingdom
Zoë Sheng Chinese-Canadian in NZ - 13-Mar-19
Koguryo Kingdom covers the sites on the Chinese side of the border. There is a separate, identical inscription for the DPRK which will probably never merge.
I visited this place a couple of years ago in winter. Not the best place to visit in winter but it was a lovely sunny day. My main plan was to continue north to Harbin for the ice festival so it "had" to be winter.
Arriving by train I rented a taxi for the day. The driver knew all locations well
Read OnBlog Connections
The Umayyads
I am currently preparing for a short trip to Medina Azahara. The OUV of this recent WHS in Andalucia is tied to both the “Umayyad cultural and architectural civilization” and “the significant period of the 10th century CE when the Umayyad caliphate of Cordoba was proclaimed in the Islamic West”. I found this is a good excuse to polish up our Umayyad Caliphate connection, as it actually falls apart into 3 focus areas: the original Umayyad empire, typical Umayyad art & architecture and the much later spin-off Umayyad caliphate of Cordoba.
The original Umayyads
The Umayyad Dynasty hailed from Mecca, but Syria was their main power base. Damascus was their capital from 661 to 744 and Harran (a TWHS) from 744 til 750.
Damascus was mainly a Christian city at the time. The Umayyads introduced an Islamic coinage system and established Arabic as the official language. They created a new urban plan with the Great Mosque (at the spot of the former Christian Cathedral of St. John) at its heart. This model served as an example to subsequent other Arab cities. The process of cultural Arabization and Islamization also extended to Jerusalem, where the Umayyad Caliph ordered the construction of the Dome of the Rock (692) .
The Umayyad sphere of influence reached from Central-Asia to the Iberian Peninsula, making it the third largest contiguous empire in the world. In Tunis and Kairouan they founded the city and built the Great Mosque. Akko and Tyre were important ports / naval bases and the Umayyads strengthened their fortifications. Now nothing tangible is left from the Umayyad period in these latter cities. Anjar and Aleppo are considered the best examples – after Damascus – of Umayyad town planning and city building.
Umayyad Architecture and Art
The art & architecture that the Umayyads created is considered to be a mix of other Middle Eastern civilizations and that of the Byzantine Empire. They also added own inventions such as mosques with minarets and the horseshoe arch.
In their architecture they often re-used existing buildings. In Syria, “churches were converted to mosques by blocking up the west door and making entrances in the north wall”.
The best example of Umayyad art undoubtedly is Quseir Amra. The frescoes in this bath house are a form of early Islamic art, far away from the “austere religious environment”.
The Umayyad caliphate of Cordoba
The 7th century Umayyad Dynasty had already reached unto what are now Spain and Portugal. It survived there even after the Umayyads lost their position in Damascus to the Abbasids. From 929 to 1031 they transformed into the Caliphate of Córdoba, which still was governed by a member of the Umayyad Dynasty. It had its capital in Córdoba. They secured Melilla, Ceuta and Tangier on the North African coast and held “diplomatic relations with Berber tribes in North Africa, Christian kings from the north, and with France, Germany and Constantinople.”
The Historic Centre of Córdoba is of course the most impressive testimony to this Caliphate of Cordoba. Here the focal point is the Great Mosque of Cordoba, built on the location of a Christian church just as the ‘original’ Umayyad Mosque of Damascus. Nearby Medina Azahara was its newly build twin city.
In total, 8 WHS attribute their OUV to the Umayyads in some form or another. 7 WHS have a lesser connotation.
Els - 17 March 2019
Comments
Caspar Dechmann 17 March 2019
That is very impressive for one family! Thanks!
Clyde 17 March 2019
Very interesting post, Els! Thanks
Els Slots 17 March 2019
Good find, Solivagant! I believe it was at least Umayyad in architectural style (see Data at https://archnet.org/sites/2730). It probably wasn't built on the orders of an Umayyad dignitary (Toledo seemed to have been "far" from Cordoba in that respect), but by a private person. And I'll remove Abassid.
Solivagant 17 March 2019
"In total, 8 WHS attribute their OUV to the Umayyads in some form or another. 7 WHS have a lesser connotation."
I see that we haven't connected Toledo to this Connection.
Crit iii for Toledo states "The civilisation of the Emirate of Cordoba built a great many Islamic art monuments...." and then lists a number including the Bab al- Mardum Mosque. This was built in 999 and became the Mosque of Cristo de la Luz.
But we have it connected to the Abbasid Caliphate !!?? If my reading of the history is correct - Toledo was frequently in a state of rebellion but "In 932, Abd al-Rahman III conquered Toledo, re-establishing control of al-Tagr al-Awsat, the Central March of the Omeyyad state" (Wiki). My "bible" on such matters - "Islamic Art and Architecture" (pub Konemann) clearly places the Bab al-Mardum mosque in the chapter on "Spanish Umayyads" - just before Medina al-Zahra!!
What is your understanding on this?