UNESCO recently inscribed 26 new World Heritage Sites, including 21 cultural sites, four natural sites, and one mixed site. This meeting emphasized Africa's cultural importance, with UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay highlighting a commitment to recognize the continent's historical and natural significance. A large number of new sites include prehistoric locations such as ancient architecture in Italy and rock art in various countries. Additionally, Cambodia's recognition of sites linked to the Khmer Rouge serves as memorials for victims of past political violence.
"Making Africa a priority is not a symbolic gesture," Audrey Azoulay, Unesco's director-general, said in a statement. "It's a concrete, day-to-day and long-term commitment, driven by the idea that the continent must be recognised for its historical, cultural and natural importance."
By far the largest number of new Unesco World Heritage Sites fall into the prehistoric category. These include a palaeolandscape in the United Arab Emirates, ancient funerary architecture in Italy, Minoan sites in Greece, an Iron Age metropolis in Turkey, as well as cave complexes and rock art in Brazil, Iran, South Korea and Russia.
The Khmer Rouge, which ruled Cambodia in the 1970s, was responsible for the genocide of nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population. The newly inscribed Unesco sites are former prisons and execution sites, which now serve as museums and memorials to their victims.
I could not have imagined in my wildest dreams getting fresh insights into one of the really big riddles of prehistory," the archaeologist Bettina Schulz Paulsson told The Art Newspaper earlier this month, when asked how she felt about her team's discovery.
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