Sarnath is an important Buddhist pilgrimage site just outside Varanasi, 1 of the 4 most spiritually rewarding sites pointed out by Gautama Buddha himself. Or as I have seen it described less poetically: “the location where Buddha gave his first sermons in a deer park”. There are some indications that Sarnath might be India’s nomination for 2021. Maybe surprising, as it has been lingering on the Tentative List since 1998 without noticeable action. The recent reports in the news state that “a 600 page nomination dossier is being prepared” – which may even take a few years beyond 2021!

I visited Sarnath on a North India trip in 1993. I did consider Varanasi the highlight of that trip, but I have no notes about nearby Sarnath left. The photo album contains 4 photos labelled ‘Sarnath’, which is quite a lot from pre-digital times:

• The first one is of a Golden Temple. Online research shows this is the Kashi Vishwanath temple – not in Sarnath at all but a Hindu temple in Varanasi!
• On to the second one: displaying an archaeological site, with a stupa in the far distance. It resembles Ayutthaya. These …

We all know about the bumpy road the Naumburg Cathedral had to take to get placed on the List. I decided not to look back on that episode, not to even prepare my visit and just take it at face value. I visited it on ‘Holy Saturday’, the day before Easter. I drove all the way there, 620km from my home, just for my 698th tick!

Naumburg an der Saale lies in the former GDR . This may be the main reason why this cathedral wasn’t proposed earlier – the GDR did have a Tentative List , but came late to the scene in nominating anything. It wasn’t until after the reunification in 1990 that Potsdam as the first former East German site was placed on the List. Naumburg itself still isn’t really on the beaten tourist track, although on the sunny Saturday when I was there both the town and the cathedral were well-visited by Germans.

The cathedral lies a bit outside of the historic town center. With its 4 towers and irregular shape it is already an attractive sight. Admission costs 6.50 EUR plus another 2 EUR to be allowed to take photos. …

With the visitor numbers of sites all over the world rising and the recent selfie-craze leading to irresponsible acts, the number of fatal accidents at WHS increases as well. Just in the last few weeks “ A man fell off the edge of the Grand Canyon, the third visitor death in eight days ” and another “ Tourist died of hypothermia after falling into Lake McDonald, Glacier Park ”.

We have a connection Fatal accidents or 'disasters' about these unfortunate events. It includes sites:

• where there have been "disasters" causing significant numbers of human deaths from a single incident, or
• where repeated "tourism related" deaths have totalled a significant number

Loosely ordered by overall number of fatalities, here are the main reasons why people die at WHS:

Mining Disasters (1350+)

Perhaps surprisingly, mining is the biggest killer of them all. We already had 2 serious mining disasters in this connection: at Le Bois du Cazier ( Mining Sites of Wallonia ) the last major mining disaster in European history cost 262 lives. 50 years earlier, the Courrières disaster ( Nord-Pas de Calais ) resulted in almost 1,100 deaths.

Potosí ’s …

The Olive Grove Landscapes of Andalusia is a serious candidate for WH nomination by Spain in the coming years. I have it written down for 2022 , but it might have to battle with Talayotic Culture of Minorca first (things go much more slowly now only 1 nomination per country per year is allowed). It was added to the Tentative List only in 2017 and comprises a well-defined set of 15 olive grove locations of the continuing cultural landscape type. Andalusia is the world's leading olive tree grower, producing 30% of the global production of olive oil. Its 'olive history' stretches back "thousands of years": the Phoenicians introduced the cultivated olive tree, while locals already exploited the wild olive trees.

The landscape is impossible to miss when driving from Malaga to Cordoba on the A-45 past Antequera: one sees nothing but olive groves for about 100km on both sides of the road. The tentative site description calls it a "sea of olive trees" - maybe inspiration for a future Epic Subtitle ?

After my visit to nearby Medina Azahara , I went to take a closer look at one of the proposed Olive Grove Landscapes: …

Spain’s Medina Azahara won its WH status as recently as 2018 (after having been on the Tentative List for 3 years). It wasn’t a well-known destination before that, as can be read from the previous reviewers on this website which all visited a few years earlier at most. The site has been excavated from 1910 on and has been a Spanish national monument since 1923, but the real boost in visitor numbers came after the opening of the award-winning on-site museum in 2009. When I visited, on a Saturday in late March 2019, there were literally hundreds of visitors around and the overflow parking lot was in use. A significant part of the daytrippers consisted of Spanish muslims.

Somehow not everything adds up here regarding visitor management: strapped for cash some restorations like the one of the Rich Hall have slowed down, but there still is no entrance fee charged. Other prominent Andalusian landmarks such as the Alhambra and Cordoba’s mosque-cathedral cost 14 and 10 EUR respectively. So why does Medina Azahara not profit financially from the high visitor numbers? The only paid aspect is the bus ride to the archaeological site, but this money seems …

Frontiers of the Roman Empire - Lower German Limes , together with the Dutch Limes TWHS , is scheduled to be nominated in 2021. Together they form the 3rd of 4 clusters of separate stretches of the Roman frontiers up for inclusion, after the already inscribed UK/German one plus the ‘western Danube Limes’ (2019) and before the ‘eastern Danube Limes’ (2022). The Lower German Limes is concentrated along the river Rhine, which acted as a natural border of the Roman province of Germania Inferior.

I had ‘been’ to its Dutch counterpart already in 2011 , which was a very underwhelming experience. Both Lower German parts together are said to comprise 55 locations. Among the locations in Germany, it’s hard to say which stand out so much that they warrant a visit. I choose Xanten, which is home to 4 of the locations ánd has a well-developed archaeological park plus Roman museum within its borders.

Xanten is a mid-sized town just across the Dutch/German border near Nijmegen. In Roman times it was the site of the Roman city of Colonia Ulpia Traiana . The proposed locations include a road, a defensive structure, the late …

The investment in my ‘All Turkey Tour’ of 1991 keeps on giving gifts. With a friend I had joined a 3 week group tour by bus all across Turkey. During that trip I visited 8 sites that are nowadays WHS. Also we touched upon numerous interesting TWHS. One lingering on Turkey’s Tentative List is Harran and Sanliurfa . These two ancient cities (located 40km apart) were among the highlights of the 1991 tour. This was mostly because of their very remote and oriental setting: I had not been outside of Europe at the time and Harran lies only some 25km north of the Syrian border.

Sanliurfa

Sanliurfa is a city of 2 million inhabitants. It is marketed as a Holy City and pilgrimage town. Old Testament prophets such as Jethro, Job, Elijah and Abraham are believed to have lived in this city. In ancient times it was known as Edessa.

Central to the city is The Pool of Sacred Fish, believed in Islamic tradition to have been the place where Abraham was thrown into the fire by Nimrod. This is also the only place that I remember of my visit – it obviously is …

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 …

One of the disadvantages of almost having ‘finished’ Italy - I have 2 out of the 54 WHS left to visit - is that I am missing the regular weekend trips out there to enjoy the historic cities and their art. So although Padua’s Scrovegni Chapel is only up for nomination in 2020, last week I fitted in an easy weekend trip to this self-proclaimed ‘Capital of the 14th century fresco painting’. It even already has a nomination website and an epic title: Padova Urbs Picta (Latin for “painted city”).

I had been to Padua once before, in 2007. Then already I had a booking for the Scrovegni Chapel, but I ran out of time that day and only ‘did’ the WHS Orto Botanico . Now I had some 24 hours to spend in the city and I stayed overnight. Padua is not the most immediately likeable city: it has some prominent examples of fascist architecture, the railway station area is rather scruffy and it takes a long walk from there to get to the historic center – a center that is split into several piazza’s with not much of …

One of the funniest Connections between WHS that we have on this website is Historical Graffiti . I always enjoy looking out for those pre-20th century scribblings while visiting a WHS. A good example was in the news this week: the discovery of more Roman graffiti at the site of the Written Rock of Gelt at Hadrian’s Wall . Roman soldiers working at the quarry had scratched a phallus into the wall, "a good luck symbol in Roman times".

The word 'graffiti' is of Italian origin and literally means 'little scratches or scribbles'. According to Chambers dictionary the exact English definition is: ”words or drawings, usually humorous, political or rude, scratched, sprayed or painted on walls, etc in public places”. The American Merriam Webster dictionary adds that they are “usually unauthorized”.

After cleaning up and adding some, we currently have 31 entries for this connection. Let’s have a closer look at what they are about:

Visitor marks at Musawwarat es-Sufra

How old are they?

Graffiti clearly is of all times. The writings or drawings can be as old as the site as itself, or as recent as the 19th century. The oldest ones among the WHS with Historical Graffiti are …