UNESCO adds three new sites to World Heritage List

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) today wrapped up this year’s review of its World Heritage List by adding three sites in Serbia, Azerbaijan and Mexico.

Today’s inscriptions, which took place during the annual meeting of the World Heritage Committee in Christchurch, New Zealand, means there are now 851 sites which have made the List for their outstanding cultural or natural value since it began in 1978.

Gamzigrad-Romuliana, Palace of Galerius, in eastern Serbia, is a Late Roman era fortified palace compound and memorial complex that was commissioned by Emperor Caius Valerius Galerius Maximianus in the late 3rd or early 4th century. The site includes fortifications, a palace, basilicas, temples, hot baths and a memorial complex.

Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape encompasses three areas of a rocky plateau in the semi-desert of central Azerbaijan that are home to a collection of 6,000 rock engravings stretching over 4,000 years. The site also contains remnants of settlements and burials from humans who lived there during the period after the last Ice Age.

In the Mexican capital, the ensemble of buildings, sports facilities and open spaces of the Central University City Campus of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) were built between 1949 and 1952 by more than 60 architects, engineers and artists. The campus is considered a unique example of 20th century modernism and includes references to local traditions, particularly to Mexico’s pre-Hispanic history.

In total this week the World Heritage Committee inscribed 22 new sites on the List and took the unprecedented step of removing one site – the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in Oman – because of the country’s failure to adequately preserve the property.