Hello Everyone:
It is a lovely the start to fresh week on the blog. It is mid-August and the perfect time for late summer getaway and Yours Truly has the perfect trip. The United Nations Economics, Science, and Culture Organization (en.unesco.org; date accessed Aug. 13, 2018) recently convened in Baharain to debate which sites should be included on its annual list of World Heritage sites (matadornetwork.com; July 29, 2018; date accessed Aug. 13, 2018). Eben Diskin writes in his article "UNESCO just named its 2018 World Heritage Sites," "This is the 42nd year UNESCO has met to review new nominees which must demonstrate 'outstanding universal value' to win inclusion." Outstanding universal value is kind of a hazy concept but inclusion on the list is highly coveted by the sites because it generates more tourism and revenue. The winners usually represent a diversity of sites from natural to architectural. There are currently 1,092 sites inscribed on the World Heritage list. Let us take a tour of some of this year's winners.
We begin our tour in the "happiest country in the world," Denmark. Aasivissuit--Nipisat. Inuit Hunting Ground between Ice and Sea. The spectacular Hunting Ground is located inside the Arctic Circle in the central part of West Greenland. This land of endless sky and verdant land is cultural landscape that is home to the remains of 4,200 year of the humanity's history. The property is witness to its creators' hunting of land and sea creatures, seasonal migrations, and a wealth of well-preserved tangible and intangible cultural heritage connected to climates, navigation, and medicine. One of the key elements of the property are large winter homes and evidence of caribou hunting, Paleo-Inuit cultural archeological sites. Aasivissuit also features seven key locales from Nipisat in the west to Aasivissuit, near the ice cap in the east.
Next, we head down to South Africa to check out the Barberton Makhonjwa Mountains. This spectacular mountain range in northeast South Africa makes up 40 percent of the Barberton Greenstone Belt, one of the world's oldest geological formations. The Mountain range represents the best preserved history of volcanic and sedimentary rock going back 3.6 to 3.25 billion years, when the continents were in formation. One truly amazing feature is the meteor impact fallback breccias created from meteor colliding with primitive earth just after the Great Bombardment 4.6 to 3.8 billion years ago.
We move from otherworldly cultural landscapes to a site that made Blogger jump for joy--Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region. Blogger is excited about this inscription because Yours Truly spent a good deal of time studying Japanese history and the "Closed Nation" period (17th-mid-19th-centuries) is a very fascinating one. Also, if you read and or saw the movie Silence (highly recommendation), this was the setting of Shusaku Endo's meditation on faith. The property is located in northwestern Kyushu and consists of ten villages, Hara Castle, and a cathedral built in the 17th-century. The building reflect the period of Japanese persecution of the Christian Faith--by extension all things Western--as well as it revitalization of Christian communities in the early Meiji period (1868-1911). The property is testament to the cultural tradition fostered by the hidden Christians in the Nagasaki region.
We travel from Japan to Colombia for out next tour stop: Chiriquete National Park--"The Maloca of the Jaguar." Chiriquete National Park is located in the northwest Colombian Amazon and is the largest protected area in the country. One of the most splendid defining features of the park are the table-top mountains, sheer-sided sandstone plateaux that take over the forest creating the most dramatic landscape, reinforced by its remoteness and inaccessibility. If the jaw dropping scenery is not enough, check out the over 75,000 paintings, dating from 20,000 BCE to the present, visible on the walls 60 rock shelters encircling the bases of the table-top mountains. The paintings are believed linked to the worship of the jaguar, a symbol of power and fertility. The painting present hunting scenes, battles, dances and ceremonies. Although no longer present on the site, indigenous community considers the site sacred.
Moving north, we come to the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley: originary habitat of Mesoamerica in Mexico. Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley is a semi-arid and arid part of the Mesoamerican region with finest and greatest examples of biodiversity in all of North America. The property consists of three equally gorgeous elements: Zapotitlán-Cuitcatlán, San Juan Raya, and Purrón and one of the primary homes to diverse but critically endangered species of cacti. The valley holds the densest forest of columnar cacti, forming a unique landscape that includes agave, yucca, and oaks. Archeological artifacts present evidence of technological developments and early cultivation of agriculture. Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley features an outstanding water management system of canals, wells, aqueducts, and dams, the oldest in North America which allowed for emergence of farm settlements
We have one more stop to make on our mini-world tour in the Russian Federation: Central Sikhote-Alin. This property was inscribed in the World Heritage list because the significant modifications made to this property. Before you get too excited, it was extended to include Bikin River Valley, located 100 kilometers to the north of the current site. What makes the Sikhote-Alin significant is that it is one of the richest and unusual temperate forests on the planet. This is a mixed zone between taiga and subtropics species such as tiger Himalayan bear cohabiting with northern species such as brown bear and Lynx. The property also includes the South-Okhotsk dark coniferous forests and the East Asian coniferous broadleaf forests. This fairy-tale-like forest is home to species of the taiga and southern Manchuria species including well known mammals: Amur Tiger, Siberian Musk Deer, Wolverine, and Sable.
That concludes our summer getaway. If you would like to visit these magnificent properties and more, check out whc.unesco.org. See you tomorrow.
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