World Heritage Site

It has been a long, hot summer in Japan this year. It still affected Hokkaido’s Shiretoko NP when I visited in early September – with daily temperatures of about 26 degrees, it wasn’t what I had expected. No mist and clouds, and it looked more like Central Sweden during Midsummer than a place notorious for its seasonal sea ice. 

Before going, it is important to understand which of the ‘seasons’ you’re in: this strongly affects which activities you can do and what animals you might see. There’s the ‘Drift Ice Season’ (mid-January to early March), the ‘Bear Active Season’ (May-July) and the ‘Eco Preservation Awareness Season’ (August to mid-November). Outside these tourist months, everything will be closed and roads are impassable due to snow. I flew into Memanbetsu Airport and rented a car from there (it’s a 1.5h drive). You can also get around on public transport but there aren’t many buses a day.

In September, the main trail at the Shiretoko Five Lakes can be walked independently (in ‘Bear Active Season’ you may not). You do need to get a permit though at the Shiretoko Goko Field House (costing a nominal 250 yen) and they make you attend a 13-minute presentation about the do’s and don’ts in the forest, and especially how to behave around bears (Don’t run!). The 3km long hike mostly follows a trail through the forest, which occasionally opens up for each of the five lakes. Several of the Japanese hikers that set off at the same time as I wore bear bells, so that probably scared the bears away if there were any present at all. Bears had been seen about every other day in August and September along this trail. During my hike, I only saw deer twice. The trail ends at the exemplary elevated wooden boardwalk, which entails the shorter hike you can do here.

A few km southward, a short trail leads from the Nature Center (one of the many interpretation / visitor centers of the park) to Furepe Waterfall. This is a fine hike in a more open setting than the one at Five Lakes. It provides good views of the higher mountains inland. The waterfall itself may be disappointing at first, as it trickles out of a crack fed by underground water from snow and rain (resembling “flowing tears”). However, the cliff has a steep drop of 60m into the Sea of Okhotsk.

In the evening, from 7.30-9.30 pm, I joined a Wildlife Night Drive with a company called Picchio. In a minivan, kitted out with binoculars and spotlights, we slowly drove the roads around the Nature Center and the Five Lakes access searching for animals. We quickly did find a young deer (a ‘Bambi’ also in Japanese), and later on a fox. We went looking for bears near the river, where the guide said they start coming this time of the year to eat the salmon. But we didn’t find one, and neither could we spot an owl. 

The next morning I drove the Shiretoko Pass to the other, eastern side of the peninsula. But not before I had made a little detour to the road which according to last night’s guide is best for bears in this season; it’s the road signposted to the onsen, parallel to Iwaubetsu River. Unfortunately, I came up empty (again). Driving the Shiretoko Pass isn’t anything spectacular this time of the year (it’s closed because of heavy snow from November to March). From the parking lot at the top, there’s an impressive view of Mount Rausu and the islands ‘floating on the clouds’ in the distance. I drove to the town of Rausu and then north on the coastal road, but this area isn’t nearly as developed for tourism as the Utoro side of the park. There are mostly fishermen’s villages. 

My final act for Shiretoko was joining one of the boat tours along the coast from Utoro. The tours are conducted in the open waters of the Sea of Okhotsk, which are often rough, and the coastline is very rocky. Over 50% of the cruises were cancelled during my first 2 days. Since the disastrous boating accident in 2022, where 26 people died, the operators may even have become more careful before sailing out. I had booked a 2h15 long tour with Aurora to Rutsha Bay at 9.15 am on my last morning. Not just to see a bit of the coastline, but also for the last opportunity to spot a bear: they like to visit Rutsha Bay (the company advertises an 87% success rate of spotting one). Well - my fate was the same as that of Randi & Svein Elias a year earlier: the boat turned around well before it reached its final destination. In this case, after about 35 minutes. We still got to see the funny rocks and caves included in the regular short tour, but we were back at the port an hour early (and got a partial refund).

Overall, Shiretoko is a pleasant national park that doesn’t present its unique qualities easily. It has a fascinating ecosystem where sea ice, phytoplankton, krill, salmons and bears play their part, but it is hard to witness this in action.

I guess few people outside of the Koreas often think about the Korean War (1950-1953). Still, it was a very bloody struggle with 3 million casualties, it saw a confrontation between China and the USA during the Cold War and its repercussions (such as the continuation of the Kim dynasty in the DPRK) are felt until today. To refresh my knowledge, I listened to two recent episodes of the podcast ‘Empire’ during my flight to South Korea, which dealt with the Korean War and the period leading up to it. 

As only one of two cities in the South never captured by the communist insurgents, Busan was the de facto capital of South Korea during the war period. It also hosted 500,000 refugees from the rest of the country, more than its regular inhabitants. The TWHS ‘Sites of the Busan Wartime Capital’ aims to illustrate that particular period in the city’s history via 9 component sites. I visited 3 of those.

I started at the Busan Citizens Park, which was a horse race track during the Japanese occupation of Korea and later the US Army Camp Hialeah. It was used by the US Army until 2006, but the grounds have since been returned to the City of Busan which transformed it into a public park. I strolled around it in the early evening, accompanied by joggers and people walking their dogs. A few signs and odd constructions give away its former use. There are guardposts and various forms of housing, including the remarkable Quonset Huts (photo 1) – prefab huts that were quick to construct but more durable than tents in the Korean climate. 

Close to the Toseong metro station are two further components, which I visited the next day. The Temporary Presidential Residence (now also known as the Provisional Capital Memorial Hall) was the residence of Syngman Rhee, at the time the president of South Korea. It is an interesting building that mixes Western and Japanese elements. You can walk through its rooms freely, and they have 2 videos of 7 minutes each (also in English) on show which give more context to the situation in Busan during the Korean War. For me, it helped make the period come alive (as if the war itself wasn’t bad enough, the city also was hit by a terrible fire in 1953 which led to even more casualties and more homeless people).

Not too far away lies the Ami-dong Tombstone Village. It takes a steep uphill walk, if you’re not keen on that there are also local buses. Ami-dong is one of the areas where the war refugees flocked to when the refugee camps in town were full. During the Japanese occupation, the area held a hillside cemetery, but the refugees transformed it into housing. What you’ll encounter nowadays is like a ‘favela’, with narrow passageways, lots of stairs and colourful tiny houses (but much safer to walk around in than in its Brazilian counterparts). People still live there. There are some signposts to notable buildings, but it’s such a maze that I didn’t find them all. The reuse of tombstones as spolia isn’t very visible. 

Overall, the selection of components has a somewhat similar approach to that of the Nelson Mandela Legacy Sites – together the parts form a narrative about that period in history. However, the Busan Wartime Capital is not proposed as a Site of Memory (which would be criterion vi), but as a criterion iii site (‘testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization’ - like Ayutthaya, and also the Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region). This is odd, certainly taking into account that one of the components is the UN Memorial Cemetery. It might be an effort to avert opposition by China, Russia and the DPRK against the inscription of a site connected to a recent conflict that they view differently from the South Koreans. So for most of the components, the focus lies on construction techniques and urban planning (pragmatic ways of quick construction). Inscription chances seem quite low to me, but still, these are important places in South Korea’s history and I found it worthwhile to learn about them.

After having already introduced pages showing community member statistics and those for each of the WHS sessions over the past months, I had similar ones for the countries left to do. Of course, countries can also be ranked on their 'performance'. Kyle (winterkjm) already shared a nice appetizer at the Forum this week, as he compared countries on 10 key data points. It is remarkable how similar South Korea and Portugal are in their patterns.

The country statistics are spread across 3 different pages, which can be accessed here. I will introduce each of them below.

Core data

The main overview page shows:

Size: the State Parties ranked by geographical size. I could have chosen population numbers or GDP as well, but (as did Kyle) I found ‘size’ the most interesting denominator. The largest countries with relatively few (<10) WHS are Kazakhstan, Algeria, DR of Congo and Saudi Arabia.

Country: a list of all ‘countries’ that have ratified the WH Convention. New is Nauru (see its pretty flag above), of which it was confirmed this week that they ratified last July. It became our 196th  “country”. The Cook Islands and Niue (both associated states with New Zealand) are the odd ones out, as they aren’t UN members (all others are either full or observer members). 5 out of the 196 are on all-zeros: no WHS, no TWHS, no other activity.

The numbers of WHS and TWHS per country.

The number of times the country has been a Member of the World Heritage Committee. Mexico and Egypt have the most occurrences; at 27, they have been present at the WHC for over 58% of its years. An outlier here is Lebanon, a country small in size, that nevertheless was a member at 22 sessions. Austria and Czechia are fairly large countries that never have participated.

The number of Community Members that have ‘completed’ visiting all WHS in the country. We have shown those already on individual pages, but this is the first full overview. 17 countries have been uncompleted so far, with Australia, UK and France suffering from remote islands syndrome and 5 countries where no one could even ‘tick’ their two WHS (Nigeria, Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Gabon and the C.A.R. (photo 2 shows my 1 out of 2 for this country)). No less than 1052 people completed all WHS at the Holy See!

The number of reviews: it does say something about the popularity of a country. Germany is the number one here, probably due to the easy access to its WHS and many community members living nearby.

The average rating of the WHS in the country, already publicized earlier. A new one is the average approval rating of its TWHS; the future potential of Denmark, Belgium, Hungary and The Netherlands (to just name a few) doesn't look good. 

Most per decade

I also added a page 'Performance by Decade' where you can see the countries that added the most new WHS per decade. The ‘winners’ are: 

• 1978-1987: USA & India (both 17)
• 1988-1997: Italy (21)
• 1998-2007: China & Italy (both 16)
• 2008-2017: China (17)
• 2018-now: Germany (11)

If we consider the maximum of 1 new inscribed site per annum as the optimum, we notice that 13 countries overperformed in one or more decades. France, Spain and China even did so across 3 decades, and Germany in 4!

Level of success

Another page shows the most successful (and unsuccessful) countries in the nomination game.

• Perfect inscriptions: the countries with the most WHS (China, Italy) also have the most ‘perfect’ inscriptions (so without any debate: a recommendation of inscription by the advisory body, then inscribed at the first attempt.). 
• Sites that are or have been In Danger: here we find mostly countries tainted by war. Tanzania stands out as it has struggled with Ngorongoro, Kilwa Kisiwani, and (still) Selous.
• AB overruled: the countries that had to fight the hardest to get their site inscribed. If you have followed the debates in recent years, it’s no wonder that Iran tops this list. Since the inscription process has been smoothened over the years, it may tell us that Iran isn't successful in the pre-meeting exchange of ideas with the Advisory Bodies. India, Russia and Türkiye don't do well in that respect either.
• Incomplete dossiers: some countries just keep on trying without much result. Pakistan and Uzbekistan must be mentioned here. On the other hand, as I concluded in an earlier blog post, sending in an Incomplete Dossier isn't the end of the world - countries like Russia and Portugal got their sites inscribed on a later date anyway.

Do you have suggestions for other country-related WHS data that we could keep track of?

Ten days or so ago we learned that Indonesia is preparing a serial (transnational?) proposal for a Spice Route WHS. They have been at it for years, similar news items can be traced back online to 2016, a major conference was held in 2022 and hopes are up for spice tourism in Aceh Province. It leads to the question of to what extent ‘Spice’ is represented already on the WH List.

Aspects to consider

Finding spice-related WHS, or creating a brand new one, isn’t so easy, as ‘Spice’ is a multi-interpretable subject:

Framing: In the world of UNESCO, the Spice Route is part of the Silk Roads programme and is loosely mentioned in the Silk Roads Thematic Study. Usually, the distinction between the two is made between land-based routes and maritime routes. The image above shows the Spice Routes in blue and the land-based Silk Roads in red.

Era: There are at least three stages in history where the international Spice trade was important: Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Age of Discovery. It seems logical to focus on one period to create a cohesive proposal.

Flavours: ‘Spice’ is just a general term that groups specific products like cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, pepper, nutmeg, star anise, clove, and turmeric. It also includes chili pepper and vanilla, which originated in the Americas.

Types of sites: Spice goes through different phases, from agricultural production to (sea) transport, ending up at consumer markets. So what will the proposal be? A 'cultural route'? A cultural landscape? 

Current WHS with Spice OUV

We do have an existing connection for ‘Spice Route’, It is one of our earlier ones and not very precise in its description or rationale of the connected sites. Having a second look at WHS where “spice” is mentioned in the OUV statement, we only find:

• Petra (“a major caravan centre for the incense of Arabia, the silks of China and the spices of India”)
• Qalhat (a market town for “its own produce, dates, Arabian horses as well as spices and pearls”)
• Jeddah (“The goods the pilgrimage brought with them from Asia and Africa and sold in the city, ..., the spices, the food, and the intangible heritage of the city were all related to the pilgrimage”)
• Shibam (“Located at an important caravan halt on the spice and incense route across the Southern Arabian plateau”)

Digging a little deeper, into the AB evaluations and nomination files, we encounter:

• Incense Route of the Negev (“reflect the prosperity of the Nabatean Spice trade over five hundred years from the third century BC”)
• Tabriz Bazaar - "Tabriz is the most famous trade city of Asia, because caravans bring all types of goods. They bring silk, diamond, pictured cotton, cinnamon and spices from Tatarstan, Uzbekistan, Tibet, China and eastern India." (Nomination file p. 261)

So we find only a few references and mostly superficial ones. The Nabatean Spice trade from Antiquity may even be better represented than the later global spice trade stages. Interesting is also the link with South America (clearly outside of any historical ‘route’), for Rio de Janeiro is mentioned: "an acclimatising garden, destined to introduce the culture of spices from the East Indies to Brazil in June 1808, was the starting point for the Royal Garden" (Nomination file p. 374) (thanks to Shwabb1 for finding this and other rare occurrences).

What is more remarkable though is the many WHS where “spice” isn’t mentioned at all, but where it played an important role. Anywhere in South (East) Asia with Portuguese or Dutch colonial remains is likely to have played a part in the Spice trade during the Age of Discovery, eg. Galle (no reference in AB ev, but Wiki has it as the main entrepot for cinnamon around 1400). Zanzibar was a major site for clove production and its Stone Town was an important market. Macao, Hoi An, and Melaka are considered "part of the spice trade route and settlements of Western Traders" (AB ev of Melaka only). 

Identifying possible future Spice WHS

The Tentative Lists include more sites where spices played a role. Turkish Niksar and Ukrainian Bilhorod (Akkerman) are related to the Black Sea route of Spice trade. Silhouette Island (Seychelles) was a crop producer, as was Zee Ain (Saudi Arabia). Khor Dubai had a similar market function as others already mentioned, as did Dhaka (a market for the turmeric trade). The Historic and Marine Landscape of the Banda Islands (Indonesia) is the clearest of them all: "the original and sole location of the production of the spices nutmeg and mace during the most prosperous years of Dutch, English and Portuguese colonization" (see photo 3, © Collectie Tropenmuseum).

But there are also sites much further away: San Juan de Ulua (Mexico) and Port Royal (Jamaica) show evidence that they were connected to the global spice trade already in the 17th century. And what to think of Mayo Chinchipe - Marañón archaeological landscape, the cocoa site in Ecuador and the Pre-Hispanic Hydraulic System of the San Jorge River (a medieval site in Colombia that produced peppers)?

What will Indonesia propose?

The official website shows a ‘trail’ and a map with over 20 locations on different islands: Atjeh, Sumatra, Java, Bali, Celebes, Moluccas, Banda, and even West Papua. Sites that stand out are the Trading port of Makassar, the Banda Islands, and the Maluku Islands such as Makian Island, the Biggest Clove Producer in the Spice Islands, and Ternate .

Even for a national site, it seems complex. Extending it into a transnational site requires choices (which period, which OUV and appropriate types of sites) and lots of international cooperation – of which I do not see a coordinated effort. The closest ties are with Qatar and Malaysia. 

The question for a nomination of any kind is whether there are enough tangible remains. I would like to see them stay away from the colonial forts and focus on the cultural landscapes of spice production.

Have you visited a spice-related site on your travels?

At the wrap-ups of the past WHC meetings, I’ve tried to incorporate some trends regarding the WHC process. These were based on ad-hoc queries of elements that stood out, such as the number of sites with a name change or those inscribed only on 1 criterion. I’ve now turned these into a proper page, where you can compare these key data against all years a WHC session was held. The page - best viewed on a laptop-wide screen – can be found here. What trends can we derive from it?

Notable years

The year with the most inscriptions was 2000: 61. Imagine the number of ‘armchair ticks’ you could have had from that! A further 13 were not inscribed at that session, so 74 were discussed at the meeting overall. That must have been a long session, although we don’t have a record of that since the live streams started only in 2012. On the other hand, 1989 only had 7 sites inscribed. 

This year (2024) was the smoothest in history, with only 4 sites from the initial batch not being inscribed (I am counting those withdrawn right before the session as well). In the early years, it was common to turn back high numbers, for example, 41 in 1980 and 40 in 1979. It must be noted that so early there seem to not have been any plenary discussions about individual sites and there were 2 sessions a year (with a Bureau session as the prep for the WHC session).

Regarding Extensions, it can be concluded that it wasn’t common in the first 12 years of WHC meetings. But even in 1980, Ohrid was extended from a natural site into a mixed site. In later years there are always a few, but without significant outliers or trends.

I picked 2 parameters to represent the global balance: the number of European sites inscribed versus African sites. Especially in the late 1990s and the year 2000, the European numbers ran high. In 2000, 34 of such sites were inscribed (56% of the total), and in 1997 25 (54%). 1982 only had 3 out of 24 from Europe.

The year with the most African sites inscribed was as early as 1980, which saw 4 Ethiopian WHS inscribed (including Aksum), 2 from the DRC and 1 from Ghana. At 7 sessions, no African sites were inscribed at all. One could even argue that the best years for African sites were the early ones, as 1978, 1979 and 1981 were good as well in that respect.

For the transboundary sites, I have combined transboundary (=contiguous) and serial transnational (=non-contiguous) in one number. My guess would have been that it is more common in recent years, but we do not see large differences across the years. All are within a 0-4 range. 

When a site is inscribed on a single criterion only, it does say something about the width of its values. It’s a niche aspect that is rewarded, or the only aspect left where ICOMOS or IUCN after thinking positively could see some OUV. Especially the double WHC sessions of 2021 and 2023 scored poorly in this regard, with respectively 12 (35%) and 15 (33%) of such sites. Percentage-wise, the years 1992 (40%) and 2018 (37%) do even worse.

The first year (1978) still is the best-rated year – with 4.08 it seems unlikely to ever be surpassed. It included for example Galapagos, Lalibela, Krakow and Yellowstone (the first 3 are pictured in this post). Even the lowest-ranked site of that year (Goree) has an average above 3 stars. There were only 12 sites inscribed that year, which also helped to maintain a high average.

The trends

So where does this leave us with high-level trends?

• Numbers go down: the yearly number of sites put forward and inscribed have been on or below the average of 27 since 2005. The maximum set now to discuss is 35, but the number of inscribed sites stays far from that.
• Quality goes down:  the average ‘quality’ of the sites inscribed has been on a downward trend since 2003. It only exceeded the average of 3.37 twice in the past 20 sessions: in 2013 (3.44) and 2016 (3.38). 'Bad' years are often caused by including multiple 'very bad' (< 2*) sites. 2009 saw Stoclet, La Chaux-de-Fonds and Loropeni, while 2023 had no less than 7 of those. 
• Despite the efforts to stimulate inscriptions from Africa and slow down the European countries, no trend break has been visible (yet). It is of interest to look at this from a country perspective too (non-European Saudi Arabia surely has caught up), but I will leave that for another upcoming statistics page.

Overall, the whole process overheated around the year 2000. After that measures were taken to limit the numbers to discuss (it was getting too costly) and better balance the list from a global perspective. The first action seems to have had more effect than the latter.

Are there any other conclusions that you’d draw from these data?

Since by the year 2024 “everyone has been everywhere” and many have become serious about WH travel planning, it is hard to find a place and time for a WHS meet-up. The best chances are those special opportunities that unlock places where access isn’t common. This year we have Astraftis a.k.a. Stormur to thank for pointing out the opening up of Hôtel Tassel, one of the Major Town Houses of Victor Horta, on the 3rd of August.

It led to a meet-up of 8 WH travellers. Brussels is of course the hotspot among WHS hotspots, so community members residing in Belgium, Luxemburg, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK signed up. Hôtel Tassel is very little visited - 100 visitors a year were given when the WHS was inscribed in 2000: it is in private ownership and in daily use as an office. They usually open it once or twice a year via a guided tour. On the morning we visited, 5 groups, divided into French/Dutch/English language tours, were allowed in (20pax each).

Hôtel Tassel is the work with the most historic value among the 4 Horta Houses. ICOMOS started its review with the sentence “The Hôtel Tassel can be considered the founding work of Art Nouveau”. The tour started in the street in front of it - even when the house is closed to the public, it is worth it to walk by and admire the façade. It stands out among the neighbouring houses with its characteristic steel ornaments, undulating shapes and overall luxurious appearance.

Once inside, the guide spoke the dreaded words “no photos” and we had to put on plastic shoe covers. The most impressive part of the building lies just behind the stained glass door between the vestibule and the central hallway. The floor here is covered in fine mosaics. With a winter garden to the left and a deep, open view into the living spaces, it has a light feel. Upstairs there are a few fun features, such as a built-in projector stand with which the owner, professor Tassel, could entertain his friends by showing the photos he made.

The tour lasted over an hour and it was conducted well. Beforehand I was already a bit apprehensive as I had read that the townhouse wasn’t restored to current standards – it was bought in 1976 by the architect Jean Delhaye, after a long period when the building was split into small apartments. He tried to restore it to its former glory but without taking note of all the details and within financial limitations. Indeed, the level of authenticity was rather disappointing. The guide often had to say that they did not know how the original interior had looked when Tassel lived here (hardly any photos exist, many archives are still private). Of course, the original furniture isn’t there anymore, but door handles, wallpaper and wall paintings mostly have been redone too.

So while the visit was "interesting", this Horta house didn't end up as anyone's favourite among his inscribed houses in Brussels: the Horta House Museum (a good overview) and Hotel Solvay (more opulent and authentic) are "better". A special mention goes out to Astraftis, who now has “Horta complete” – he has been inside all 4 Major Town Houses. 

After the tour, we had lunch together, and it was good again to talk with like-minded people. People who immediately know what is meant when someone says “We’ve just visited the Spears”, or that you had to engineer your WHS milestone visit so that the WHC meeting doesn’t mess the numbers up. Or who do appreciate your Plantin Moretus T-shirt, immediately recognize faux marble as a new connection for the Horta Houses and can distinguish between the different mosaics of Paphos.

I hope to meet some of you at another place on another occasion. If you see an opportunity for a specialized visit to a WHS location, for a small private group or as part of a limited opening, please let me know and I will support it. I may even show up!

The 2024 WHC Session went along swiftly, thanks to the Indian chairperson and some further measures to prevent lengthy discussions. Having to submit written amendments a day before the discussion is a plus, but limiting third-state parties or NGO’s taking the stage is more questionable and I think the WHC should avoid becoming like a Communist Party Meeting from the 1970s. Successful pre-meeting diplomacy was continued from last year, in this case between Japan and the Republic of South Korea regarding the Sado mines.

24 new sites were selected (photo 1 shows one of them, Lençóis Maranhenses). Find below some aspects that warrant a closer look.

1.      Missing WHS

We did not see one removed from our Missing List, but with the inscription of the Marquesas Islands at least for a small part the Rainforests of Polynesia has been filled in.

2.      Most and least connections

For the first time, we tried hard to find connections for the possible new WHS already beforehand. Thanks a lot to all who contributed – I’d gladly continue this next year. Despite all efforts, Vjetrenica Cave and The Flow Country stayed hard to connect – they seem very specialized WHS. Schwerin, Beijing Central Axis and the Al-Faw Cultural landscape have gained the most connections so far, and thus are quite similar to what has been inscribed before.

3.      Inspiring a new connection

A few inscriptions highlighted a subject that had not come to our attention before and/or was little represented on the list so far. Two sites, Badain Jaran and Al-Faw, gave us Hyper-arid. And Vjetrenica was the start of Cave-dwelling fauna.

4.      Not open to tourists

From the new batch, the Al-Faw Cultural Landscape (photo 2) is fully closed to tourists and one of the 3 South African Pleistocene Occupation sites is as well (and access is severely restricted to the other 2 components). Furthermore, Tell Umm Amer in Gaza is obviously out of bounds at the moment, but Gaza has always been very hard to visit for outsiders and this archaeological site has only been uncovered in 1999.

For those who do ‘tick’ one of these three new WHS – please consider carefully whether you truly have visited the site and we would be glad to see a (short) review if you do so.

5.      A high percentage of nominated sites was inscribed

24 new WHS got inscribed, with only 1 Referral left behind and 3 Withdrawals happening before the session started. This results from a more streamlined process established over the years and ICOMOS/IUCN taking more of a ‘glass is half-full’ approach. During this session, for example, ICOMOS helped Burkina Faso to inscribe the Royal Court of Tiébélé. While they rejected all 3 proposed criteria, they came up with another criterion and the State Party was happy to accept that.

Nevertheless, the total of 24 is a normal amount given the historic numbers: 26.6 is the mean average leaving out the 2 recent double WHC sessions.

6.      Which countries are not complete anymore?

The counts for this year’s new WHS are still coming in (I only reopened the checklist yesterday afternoon), but can some keep the 'top' or ‘difficult countries’ complete? At the time of writing, China (4 completionists), Brazil (1), India (1), Iran (4), and South Africa (7) have not been 'reclaimed' yet while they were completed before. 

7.      Notable WHC members

The Zambian delegate, who made his presence last year already known with his “preaching”-speaking style, added to his popularity this time by showing off two different traditional dresses. He also must be commended for speaking mostly from the heart (while still staying coherent) instead of reading prefab statements as the others do. Content-wise, the Lebanese delegate seemed to be the most straight on the subject.

8.      Getting 2 new WHS anyway

For several years, the rule is that only 1 nomination per country is allowed to better balance the list. Still, there are ways to circumvent this. A popular way over the years – especially for European states - has become to take part in a serial transnational nomination led by another state. Germany and the UK this way got to two this year, via the Moravian Church Settlements extension. Also, the lifting of the moratorium on sites of memory has allowed a temporary loophole. Here, Romania (with the help of the Brancusi Ensemble which wasn’t even a Site of Memory, but somehow ended up on the moratorium list) and South Africa profited from taking two this session. From the moratorium list, only the D-Day beaches seem to be left now.

9.      Multiple Cradles of Humankind

During the meeting, claims were made by both Ethiopia and Kenya that they represent the Cradle of Humankind. South Africa already had a claim on this as well and got another site inscribed on this topic. No less than 3 of the new WHS (Melka Kunture, Niah Caves, Pleistocene Occupation Sites) include evidence of early hominid life. And Iran's Hegamataneh was claimed to be the Cradle of Civilization!

10.  Germany is closing in

Germany (54 WHS) is now #3 behind Italy and China on the country ranking, leaving France and Spain behind. During this meeting, the third World Heritage Site in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was celebrated (Schwerin) – a number that cannot be matched by over 50 State Parties including large ones such as Nigeria, Ghana, Myanmar and Papua New Guinea. The former GDR now has 15 inscribed sites.

Of course it's a bit early to see what the average rating of the 2024 sites will be, but my gut feeling is that it isn’t as bad as the past 2 sessions. What’s your view on this year’s batch?

I recently have been reading ‘The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World’ by Bettany Hughes. It’s a very comprehensive account of the sites on this ancient Wonder-list and is based on up-to-date research. She sets out to discover "what the Seven Wonders meant to 'them' - to our relatives across time - and what they do and can mean to us". The introduction chapter also details the ways of early ‘list-making’ – Hellenistic travellers were just as enthusiastic about groupings as we are today, frequently using lists of sevens (the most beautiful rivers, the highest mountains, etc.). An explanation she provides is that these groupings give cohesion to history. 

The Wonders

I learned quite a bit from the book and also found further links to (T)WHS, so I could upgrade the existing connection. The Seven Wonders in chronological order, what’s left to see and their link to (T)WHS, were:

1. The Great Pyramid at Giza: the oldest Wonder but the only one still standing and the main component of a WHS. Only the Romans weren’t impressed! 

The Wonder features prominently in the OUV statement for Memphis and its Necropolis in criterion i: “In Memphis was founded one of the most important monuments of the world, and the only surviving wonder of the ancient world, namely, the Great Pyramid of Giza”. 

2. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon: the most enigmatic Wonder because it is unclear whether they ever existed, or whether they were located in Babylon or Nineveh. Some early Wonder lists named the ‘Walls of Babylon’ instead.

Its wondrous elements (Gardens, Tower) are part of the OUV of the WHS of Babylon, the (very short) TWHS description of Nineveh has no reference to it. We also had Museuminsel as part of the connection with its remains of the Ishtar Gate now in the Pergamon Museum, but I removed it to keep it more to the point (maybe we can create a new Connection with WHS connected to the Seven Wonders in the second grade).

3. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus: this very large temple with a creative design at the time was a living cult site accessible to all, like the ones we now encounter in India. There's a link with the TWHS of Sardis, as this site provided the gold that funded the rebuilding of the temple in the 6th century BCE.

The Temple gets a short reference in the WHS of Ephesus OUV statement (“Little remains of the famous Temple of Artemis, one of the ‘seven wonders of the world’ which drew pilgrims from all around the Mediterranean until it was eclipsed by Christian pilgrimage”)

4. The Statue of Zeus at Olympia: this huge golden statue, seated inside a temple, was visited by many, especially during the peaceful years when the Olympian Games were held. A single column of the temple is left standing, parts of the statue were later transported to Constantinople where they were displayed for some time near the Hippodrome.

The OUV of Olympia still heavily references it, even in criterion I (“The sanctuary of the Altis contained one of the highest concentrations of masterpieces of the ancient Mediterranean world. Many have been lost, such as the Olympia Zeus, a gold-and-ivory cult statue which was probably destroyed by Pheidias between 438 and 430 BC and one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.”)

5. The Mausoleum of Halikarnassos: the mother of all Mausolea, named after the Karian king Mausolos. It was standing until 1400, when it was toppled by an earthquake. The ruins can still be visited in Bodrum, although most of the interest now lies underground.

The archaeological site of Halikarnassos has been on Turkey’s T List, but was removed in 1996. The current TWHS Bodrum Castle is also linked to this Wonder, as its spolia were used in building the Crusader Castle nearby and the proposed OUV partly relies on that fact.

6. The Colossus of Rhodes: this huge bronze statue of the sun god Helios only stood upright for about 60 years, before an earthquake destroyed it.

Although what has been inscribed as a WHS is the Medieval City of Rhodes, the OUV statement (criterion iv) still refers to the Colossus: “The fact that this medieval city .. commands a port formerly embellished by the Colossus erected by Chares of Lindos, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, only adds to its interest.” However, the image of the giant straddling two sides of the harbour (photo above) is a medieval invention. It is now thought that the statue stood at the highest point of the City of Rhodes – maybe where the Grandmaster’s Castle now is or (more likely) at Monte Smith where the Helian Games were held. However, no traces have ever been found.

The Colossus also served as a source of inspiration for Bartholdi in designing the Statue of Liberty.

7. The Pharos Lighthouse at Alexandria: it survived until 1303 when it was felled by an earthquake as well. The foundations can still be seen and parts have been reused in the Fort.

Alexandria features on Egypt's T List as “Alexandria, ancient remains and the new library” and its description mentions “The lighthouse was one of the seven wonders of the world in antiquity. Its outline is known only from coins, a Byzantine mosaic discovered in Libya and the remains of a similar lighthouse in Taposiris Magna.”

Visiting them all

I added a new Community Ranking list of the members who have visited all 5 directly linked WHS and also 'ticked' the TWHS of Bodrum Castle and Alexandria - the closest remainders of the 2 non-WHS Wonders.

In Antiquity, Alexander the Great reportedly visited 5 out of the 7 original Wonders – the 6th and 7th date from after his death.

Since introducing the Connections feature, 1531 connections with 27,141 connected sites have been added to this website. I was inspired by Jurre, who has so diligently inventoried connections for Italian WHS recently at the Forum, to discover what the amount of connections tells us about a WHS. To support this research, I made a new Ranking page called Connected that shows the number of connections each WHS has.

Best connected

It comes as no surprise that the large city centers with a long history dominate the Top 10 of WHS with the most connections:

Ferrara may be the odd one out, but its high ranking can be explained by the inclusion of the Po Delta with the city center of Ferrara.

Fewest connections

When we look at the 120 WHS with less than 10 connections, the following categories stand out:

Recent WHS

No less than 26 WHS from 2023 haven’t reached the 10 connections yet. The Viking Age Ring Fortresses only has 2!

This may teach us that the number of connections for a site grows over time. Or we should try harder directly after a WHC – maybe last year we were a bit overwhelmed by the high numbers getting in at the double session.  For example, the similar double session of 2021 has only 3 WHS left with less than 10 connections.

Old WHS with little documentation

During the early years, WHS were added without much documentation. One would expect that finding connections for these WHS would be difficult, but overall this is not strongly reflected in the numbers. There are a few early sites such as the Boyana Church, the Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo (photo) and the Urnes Stave Church which could benefit from a better description. Vernacular and/or rural churches like these 3 do quite poorly overall by the way, with also Vall de Boi, Pskov Churches and the Wooden Churches of the Maramures in very low numbers.

Oddities – or just very unique

When I started to look at the WHS with very few connections, I was hoping to find the WHS that are so unique that they are hard to connect to 2 other WHS. The Grimeton Radio Station surely is such a site, or the Four Lifts.

Also, ‘mysterious’ sites where the use/meaning is unknown and which cannot be linked to a major culture prove hard to connect: think of the Plain of Jars, Tiya, the Madara Rider.

Poorly rated sites

A final hypothesis was that sites with poor ratings have a low number of connections. Especially the more simple ones (where there isn't much to see), such as the Chengjiang Fossil Site or the Sangiran Early Man Site, indeed do have less than 10 connections. But we also find Khajuraho and Ajanta Caves in that category, two majestic sites. Looking at the full list though, I'd say that overall the "better" sites get more connections (although the poorly rated variations of Limes are always good for above-average numbers of connections).

Are there any (groups of) WHS that do stand out to you when you look at the list of most and least connected sites?

Our Connection ‘Neolithic Age’ groups all WHS correlating with the Neolithic period. Some derive their OUV from it, while others only have a slight link because archaeological strata from that era have been found below later more important findings.

The Neolithic is the Later Stone Age, a period that timewise differs across the continents but is characterized by the introduction of farming, domestication of animals, and change from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of settlement. It was predated by the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic and followed by the relatively short transformation period of the Chalcolithic (a.k.a. Copper Age) before the Bronze Age started.

I updated the Connection and set out to find which sites can be considered the Top Neolithic WHS. And I learned a few things along the way…

Inventory

We already had 55 connected sites. I checked them all for their rationale, updated the texts, and removed two (Vredefort Dome and Rapa Nui). I then did a query on the UNESCO website with the term ‘Neolithic’. This resulted in 42 hits, including 12 previously unconnected ones such as the Antequera Dolmens and Ephesus. The Wikipedia page on the Neolithic also has a list of sites, from which I picked Horton Plains (Central Highlands of Sri Lanka). 

5 of the final 66 are also in the connections for Palaeolithic and Mesolithic, 2 in Chalcolithic and 10 in Bronze Age, which shows that sites usually aren’t typically Neolithic only. The Americas aren’t considered to have had a Neolithic age, the corresponding era here is the Formative Stage but it has different characteristics.

Finding ‘the best’

So where do you need to go to see what makes the Neolithic Neolithic? Three WHS are so quintessentially Neolithic that they have the term in their full site name: the Heart of Neolithic Orkney, the Neolithic Flint Mines of Spiennes, and the Neolithic Site of Çatalhöyük.

I ranked the list that I compiled above against the following criteria, handing out one point max per criterium:

Neolithic as an explicit part of the OUV

Here interpretation and additional research came into play. Sometimes the term ‘Neolithic’ is used in an OUV statement, but the OUV criteria on which it was inscribed point elsewhere. Byblos for example is said to be “Continuously inhabited since Neolithic times”, where the rationale behind the criteria focuses on the Bronze Age and the Phoenician era. In cases like this, I did not reward a point.

Another issue that arose is determining whether a site is truly Neolithic. Sarazm for example, does its OUV date back to the very end of the Neolithic or is it Chalcolithic? With its focus on metallurgy in crit ii and iii (see also this) I’d veer to Chalcolithic, but it existed in the Neolithic already as a settlement (it did inspire a new connection BTW: Proto-Cities). And for Malta’s Megalithic Temples, Wiki says Neolithic and UNESCO says Bronze Age. With an OUV relying on technical stoneworking skills, Neolithic seems more appropriate (also because the Ggantija temples are older than the Hypogeum of Hal Saflieni, which is labelled as Neolithic everywhere). When in doubt, I rewarded half a point.

Neolithic aspects are visible

Nan wrote in his Jericho review "As a Neolithic site, this is probably as good as it gets". Solivagant's Choirokoita review makes a difference between Neolithic megaliths and Neolithic settlements, and he deemed the latter as "there is very little for the untrained eye to see". To appreciate the remains of so long ago may require using a Stoclet Pass (the oldest of the notorious Pile Dwellings are also from the Neolithic), but the best of them still offer something good to look at. Those are way more elaborate than simple dolmen or foundations of buildings.

I’ve awarded the points mostly following the site rating (0.5 for sites with an average score below 3, 1 for those at 3 or more), after making sure that what you’re looking at is indeed the Neolithic part and whether there is anything to see at all.

The Top Sites

I ended up with the maximum score of 2 for:

• Neolithic Orkney : for Skara Brae, "unparalleled amongst Neolithic settlement sites in northern Europe." (Photo 1 shows the Stones of Stenness Circle, also part of this WHS)
• Petroglyphs of the Lake Onega and the White Sea : for its "coherent image of the Neolithic culture period in the northeastern part of Fennoscandia" (other rock art sites date back to the Neolithic as well, but tend to span long periods with most visible remains of a later date)
• Brú na Bóinne : for its grand passage tombs and rock carvings (Photo 2 shows carvings at Newgrange)
• Stonehenge: for its architecturally sophisticated stone circles
• Hal Saflieni Hypogeum : the only known subterranean ‘labyrinth’ from the period, excellently preserved
• Göbekli Tepe : for its innovative building techniques
• Çatalhöyük : for its house clusters, characterized by their streetless neighbourhoods (Photo 3)

Runners-up, with a score of 1.5, are Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes, Antequera Dolmens, Choirokoitia, Krzemionki prehistoric flint mines, Ancient Jericho, Liangzhu Archaeological Site, Megalithic Temples of Malta, and the Jomon Prehistoric Sites (the Jomon period is considered "the Neolithic of Japan").

You can find the full spreadsheet here to see how I determined the scores (or calculate your own).

Missing Neolithic WHS

Europe and the Middle East seem already well-represented among the Neolithic WHS. Arabia and Africa have some too, although less spectacular. One might expect more however from the Indian subcontinent and China. A site that I came across repeatedly is probably the Top Missing Neolithic site: Mehrgarh in Pakistan (a TWHS) - "Located in the Indus Valley, Mehrgarh is one of the earliest known Neolithic settlements in South Asia, dating back to around 7000 BCE. Evidence suggests a transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a settled agricultural community, with domesticated wheat and barley found at the site."

Do you enjoy visiting Neolithic sites?