Temple of Debod

World Heritage Bam Iran City

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• published: 16 Aug 2016
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A World Heritage Site is a place (such as a building, city, complex, desert, forest, island, lake, monument, or mountain) that is listed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as being of special cultural or physical significance. The list is maintained by the international World Heritage Programme administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, composed of 21 UNESCO member states which are elected by the General Assembly. The programme catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common culture and heritage of humanity. Under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund. The program was founded with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the Worlds Cultural and Natural Heritage,[3] which was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO on 16 November 1972. Since then, 192 states parties have ratified the convention, making it one of the most adhered to international instruments. Only Liechtenstein, Nauru, Somalia, Timor-Leste, and Tuvalu are not Parties to the Convention. As of July 2016, 1052 sites are listed: 814 cultural, 203 natural, and 35 mixed properties, in 165 states parties.[4][5] According to the sites ranked by country, Italy is home to the greatest number of World Heritage Sites with 51 sites, followed by China (50), Spain (45), France (42), Germany (41), India (35) and Mexico (34). UNESCO references each World Heritage Site with an identification number; however, new inscriptions often include previous sites now listed as part of larger descriptions. Consequently, the identification numbers exceed 1,200, even though there are fewer on the list. hile each World Heritage Site remains part of the legal territory of the state wherein the site is located, UNESCO considers it in the interest of the international community to preserve each site. In 1954, the government of Egypt decided to build the new Aswan High Dam, whose resulting future reservoir would eventually inundate a large stretch of the Nile valley containing cultural treasures of ancient Egypt and ancient Nubia. In 1959, the governments of Egypt and Sudan requested UNESCO to assist their countries to protect and rescue the endangered monuments and sites. In 1960, the Director-General of UNESCO launched an appeal to the Member States for an International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia.[6] This appeal resulted in the excavation and recording of hundreds of sites, the recovery of thousands of objects, as well as the salvage and relocation to higher ground of a number of important temples, the most famous of which are the temple complexes of Abu Simbel and Philae. The campaign, which ended in 1980, was considered a complete and spectacular success. As tokens of its gratitude to countries which especially contributed to the campaigns success, Egypt donated four temples: the Temple of Dendur was moved to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Temple of Debod was moved to the Parque del Oeste in Madrid, the Temple of Taffeh was moved to the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in the Netherlands, and the Temple of Ellesyia to Museo Egizio in Turin. The project cost US$80 million, about $40 million of which was collected from 50 countries. The projects success led to other safeguarding campaigns: saving Venice and its lagoon in Italy, the ruins of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, and the Borobodur Temple Compounds in Indonesia. UNESCO then initiated, with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, a draft convention to protect the common cultural heritage of humanity. Convention and background The United States initiated the idea of cultural conservation with nature conservation. A White House conference in 1965 called for a World Heritage Trust to preserve the worlds superb natural and scenic areas and historic sites for the present and the future of the entire world citizenry . The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968, and they were presented in 1972 to the United Nations conference on Human Environment in Stockholm. Under the World Heritage Committee, signatory countries are required to produce and submit periodic data reporting providing the World Heritage Committee with an overview of each participating nations implementation of the World Heritage Convention and a snapshot of current conditions at World Heritage properties. A single text was agreed on by all parties, and the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO on 16 November 1972. The Convention came into force on 17 December 1975. As of June 2016, it has been ratified by 192 states, including 188 UN member states plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See, Niue, and the Palestinian territories.