On April 10, the world stood by as war-torn Baghdad's National Museum and Manuscript Library, the latter a repository for some 5,000 of the earliest-known documents, were sacked and looted. In the days that followed, numerous accounts of the tragedy surfaced in the media, yet the true...Read more
Of all the challenges facing the field of preservation, among the greatest has been the replication of ancient techniques or methods of manufacture that are no longer practiced. This issue we highlight tw o projects that have required a revitalization of lost, or vanishing, arts. At Qianlong's...Read more
Strategically sited on a Rajasthan hilltop, the fortified city of Jaisalmer is one of India’s greatest architectural treasures. Founded in a . d. 1156 by the Rajput prince, Rawal Jaisal, Jaisalmer is known colloquially as Sonar Kila, or the “Golden Fort,” after the luminous sandstone of which it is...Read more
November is acque alte in Venice, a time when the Moon and Mother Nature conspire to inundate the ancient city, threatening its magnificent artistic treasures. While this season has brought its share of high water, little could compare with the 194-cm tide that struck the city just before sunset on...Read more
Kent Diebolt, founder of the private firm Vertical Access, uses mountaineering techniques and equipment to conduct architectural surveys on buildings. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the firm has been assessing the damage to buildings surrounding the World Trade Center site in lower...Read more
Eight kilometers outside Spoleto, along the old road to Todi, lies the ancient Pieve di San Brizio, a diminuitive parish church dedicated to a Syrian-Christian who took refuge in the city to avoid Roman persecution, sometime in the third century. San Brizio would later serve as the first bishop of...Read more
There is no word for “tourism” in Chol, a Prehispanic language still spoken by more than 10,000 Maya living along the southern reaches of the Usumacinta River, which separates Guatemala and the Mexican state of Chiapas. Yet, due to a recent surge in interest in the development of two vast, ancient...Read more
A quest to build Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land began nearly a century before William Blake composed his poem; for Queen Anne, in her 1711 Act of Parliamentary, decreed that “…50 new churches [were to be built] of stone and other proper materials, with Towers or Steeples to each of...Read more
Skirting the edge of the Empty Quarter, sheer cliffs of sandstone and limestone rise 1,000 feet above the valley floor of Yemen’s Wadi Hadhramaut, flanking a series of settlements that lie along an ancient road. Three of these cities—Shibam, Seyoun, and Tarim—are renown throughout the Arab world...Read more
For nearly four decades, the World Monuments Fund has been on the forefront of preservation, working to save sites around the globe. For every project we have undertaken, there are seemingly dozens of stories t o be told, of lessons learned, of technologies developed, and of strategies devised to...Read more