Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura

Some of these caves, located in Ach Valley and in Lone Valley, were inhabited 40000 years ago

Caves and Ice Age Art in Swabian Jura

This postcard was sent by Gabi

Modern humans first arrived in Europe 43,000 years ago during the last ice age. One of the areas where they took up residence was the Swabian Jura in southern Germany. Excavated from the 1860s, six caves have revealed items dating from 43,000 to 33,000 years ago. Among them are carved figurines of animals (including cave lions, mammoths, horses and bovids), musical instruments and items of personal adornment. Other figurines depict creatures that are half animal, half human and there is one statuette of a woman. These archaeological sites feature some of the oldest figurative art worldwide and help shed light on the origins of human artistic development. - in: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1527/

Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region

This site consists of ten villages, Hara Castle and a cathedral, built between the 17th and 19th centuries. However,  the initial nomination included 26 sites.

Oura Church

This postcard was sent by Akiko

The Basilica of the Twenty-Six Holy Martyrs of Japan, also Ōura Church, is a Roman Catholic minor basilica and Co-cathedral in Nagasaki, Japan, built soon after the end of the Japanese government's Seclusion Policy in 1853. It is also known as the Church of the 26 Japanese Martyrs. It was for many years the only Western-style building declared a national treasure, and is said to be the oldest church in Japan.

In 1863, two French priests from the Société des Missions Étrangères, Fathers Louis Furet and Bernard Petitjean, landed in Nagasaki with the intention of building a church honoring the Twenty-Six Martyrs of Japan, nine European priests and seventeen Japanese Christians who were crucified in 1597 by order of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The church was finished in 1864. Constructed by the master carpenter of the Glover Residence, Koyama Hidenoshin, it was originally a small wooden church with three aisles and three octagonal towers. The present structure is a much larger Gothic basilica that dates from around 1879. This version was built of white stuccoed brick with five aisles, vaulted ceilings, and one octagonal tower. The design most likely came from a Belgian plan used by Catholic missionaries in an earlier church built in Osaka. The stained glass windows were imported from France. - in: wikipedia

The twelve properties part of this site (in red what I have):

• Remains of Hara Castle
• Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado (Kasuga Village and Mt. Yasumandake)
• Kasuga Village and Sacred Places in Hirado (Nakaenoshima Island)
• Sakitsu Village in Amakusa
• Shitsu Village in Sotome
• Ono Village in Sotome
• Villages on Kuroshima Island
• Remains of Villages on Nozaki Island
• Villages on Kashiragashima Island
• Villages on Hisaka Island
• Egami Village on Naru Island (Egami Church and its Surroundings)
• Oura Cathedral

Cathedral and Churches of Echmiatsin and the Archaeological Site of Zvartnots

This cathedral is part of a group of monuments that form this site.

Etchmiadzin Cathedral

This postcard was sent from Germany by Daniela

Etchmiadzin Cathedral is the mother church of the Armenian Apostolic Church, located in the city of Vagharshapat (Etchmiadzin), Armenia. According to most scholars, it was the first cathedral (but not the first church) built in ancient Armenia, and is considered the oldest cathedral in the world.

Etchmiadzin Cathedral

This postcard was sent from Turkey by Mea

The original church was built in the early fourth century —between 301 and 303 according to tradition—by Armenia's patron saint Gregory the Illuminator, following the adoption of Christianity as a state religion by King Tiridates III. It replaced a preexisting temple, symbolizing the conversion from paganism to Christianity. The core of the current building was built in 483/4 by Vahan Mamikonian after the cathedral was severely damaged in a Persian invasion. From its foundation until the second half of the fifth century, Etchmiadzin was the seat of the Catholicos, the supreme head of the Armenian Church. - in: wikipedia

Monuments that are part of this site (in red what I already have):

• Etchmiadzin Cathedral
• Church of Saint Gayane
• Church of Saint Hripsime
• Church of Shoghakat
• Cemetery of Congregation
• Archaeological site of  Zvartnots

Fanjingshan

This week 19 new sites were added to the World Heritage list. I had 3, including this one.

Mount Fanjingshan

This postcard was sent by Wei Tianyi

The Fanjingshan or Mount Fanjing, located in Tongren, Guizhou province, is the highest peak of the Wuling Mountains in southwestern China, at an altitude of 2,572 m (8,438 ft). The Fanjingshan National Nature Reserve was established in 1978 and designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1986. The reserve covers a total area of 567 km² (219 sq mi) and is a conservation area for primitive vegetation of the mid sub-tropic alpine region of western China. The rare gray snub-nosed monkey occurs only in a small region centering on Fanjingshan. It is also a sacred Buddhist mountain, a status it has held since the Ming dynasty. Fanjingshan was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2018. - in: wikipedia

Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park and Hin Nam No National Park

This site features some of the biggest caves in the World. Reminds me the caves I visited ,also quite big, in Majorca back in 2009

Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park

This postcard was sent from Australia by Helen

The Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2003, covered 85,754 hectares. With this extension, the site covers a total surface area of 126,236 hectares (a 46 % increase) and shares a boundary with the Hin Namno Nature Reserve in the Peoples Democratic Republic of Laos. The Park’s landscape is formed by limestone plateaux and tropical forests. It features great geological diversity and offers spectacular phenomena, including a large number of caves and underground rivers. The site harbours a high level of biodiversity and many endemic species. The extension ensures a more coherent ecosystem while providing additional protection to the catchment areas that are of vital importance for the integrity of limestone landscapes. - in: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/951/

Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin

This site was shaped after three centuries of coal extraction from 18th century to 20th century

Pas-de-Calais

This postcard was sent from Italy by Gosia, who recently visited this site

Remarkable as a landscape shaped over three centuries of coal extraction from the 1700s to the 1900s, the site consists of 109 separate components over 120,000 ha. It features mining pits (the oldest of which dates from 1850) and lift infrastructure, slag heaps (some of which cover 90 ha and exceed 140 m in height), coal transport infrastructure, railway stations, workers’ estates and mining villages including social habitat, schools, religious buildings, health and community facilities, company premises, owners and managers’ houses, town halls and more. The site bears testimony to the quest to create model workers’ cities from the mid 19th century to the 1960s and further illustrates a significant period in the history of industrial Europe. - in: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1360

Temple of Preah Vihear

Preah Vihear is an outstanding masterpiece of Khmer architecture.

Temple of Preah Vihear

This postcard arrived from Malaysia sent by SL

Preah Vihear Temple is an ancient Hindu temple built during the period of the Khmer Empire, that is situated atop a 525-metre (1,722 ft) cliff in the Dângrêk Mountains, in the Preah Vihear province, Cambodia.

Construction of the first temple on the site began in the early 9th century; both then and in the following centuries it was dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva in his manifestations as the mountain gods Sikharesvara and Bhadresvara. The earliest surviving parts of the temple, however, date from the Koh Ker period in the early 10th century, when the empire's capital was at the city of that name. Today, elements of the Banteay Srei style of the late 10th century can be seen, but most of the temple was constructed during the reigns of the Khmer kings Suryavarman I (1006–1050) and Suryavarman II (1113–1150). - in: wikipedia