#cultural-heritage

#cultural-heritage

There is a specific high that comes with outrunning your own limiting beliefs - a chase that has previously landed me in an Austrian fasting clinic, on a half-marathon start line in Madrid, and sitting ten days of silent meditation in the English countryside. But even I, a glutton for punishingly offbeat wellness trends, would have laughed you out of the juice bar had you told me a year ago that I'd soon be yodelling my way to self-improvement.

A new law empowering Turkey's central government to seize historic properties from local authorities is raising fears that heritage sites are becoming the latest front in a wider campaign against opposition-led municipalities. Among the sites at stake are cultural venues run by the Istanbul municipality, whose mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu launched an ambitious conservation drive and expanded cultural programming before he was jailed last year after announcing plans to run for president.

"It's a big problem,"

Plus, King Henry's new conquest, RTÉ and TG4 make nice, and the clickbaity WSJ Browsing through the annual reports of the National Gallery and National Library for 2024, both published last week, we noticed how modestly the people who guard our cultural heritage are paid. Dr Audrey Whitty, the director of the library, got a salary of €127,868 that year. There are no bonuses or benefits-in-kind attached to the position. And the director of the National Gallery, Dr Caroline Campbell, was paid €128,724.

The ranch is located in one of the most remote parts of California. It's a huge property, said Lucy Blake, president of the Northern Sierra Partnership. On the east side, there are large sagebrush flats that climb up into conifer forests and aspen groves. It has a lot of springs. It's very rich in wildlife. When we're out there, we've seen herds of pronghorn antelope and golden eagles. It's very vast and beautiful. A classic Western landscape.

Europe has never been short on spectacle. Yet beyond the headline cities and endlessly recycled itineraries lies a quieter, deeper continent; one that's best encountered through patience and a willingness to detour from the obvious itinerary. Our 7 wonders of Europe for 2026 in Europe are not places that beg for attention. Instead, they reward those prepared to explore more than a few miles from the nearest airport and linger a little longer than planned.

Arguably the world's most famous Greek temple, the Parthenon was constructed in a flurry of building activity on the Acropolis of Athens, under the direction of the indefatigable statesman Pericles in the middle of the fifth century BC. It was a monument to recent tragedy in Athens as much as a celebration of the city's glory: The Acropolis had been leveled by Persian invaders in 480 BC, and its temples had been left in ruins for 30 years, a colossal absence reminding citizens how close they had come to annihilation.

The public outcry was swift and furious-this was, after all, by some reports, the most photographed tree in the country, the so-called Sycamore Gap Tree. "The senseless destruction of what is undoubtedly a world-renowned landmark-and a local treasure," was how one law enforcement official described it in the pages of the New York Times, before the culprits had even been apprehended.

Supporters of the Michelin-starred establishment are urging the King, who has championed community links, to protect what they describe as "a living piece of shared cultural history". However, the Crown Estate insists the building requires refurbishment that cannot be done with the restaurant in place. "This is not a decision we've taken lightly," said a Crown Estate spokesman about removing the restaurant from its current premises.

Korean culture has become a familiar presence in American life. K-pop dominates global charts, K-dramas have become staples on streaming platforms, Korean food has moved from specialty shops to neighborhood grocery stores, and K-beauty brands line retail shelves nationwide. As Korean culture reaches new audiences, Korean Treasures: Collected, Cherished, Shared traces the artistic traditions that have shaped today's cultural momentum.

Kayla and Bethany are no strangers to deep dives, and in this episode they're sharing everything they've learned about "Arirang," the centuries-old folk song sometimes referred to as the collective memory of the Korean people. The song can be traced all the way back to the 1700s; though the legend of its origin is disputed, multiple versions of the song have been passed down across centuries. Today, there are over 3,600 known variations and counting.

"The silver price is high... but for us it is of course far more than the silver price," the museum's chairman Ernst Boesveld told The Art Newspaper. "It is about the stories behind every mustard pot, it is history and it is cultural heritage. We are enormously disappointed and angry."

"The object of the Museum is to acquire power," announces a crusty old archaeologist in Penelope Fitzgerald's 1977 satire, The Golden Child. It isn't a goal he respects. He wants the museum where he's settled into semiretirement to genuinely devote itself to educating its visitors. Instead, he correctly charges, its curators act like a pack of Gollums, hoarding "the art and treasures of the earth" for their own self-aggrandizement and pleasure.

Nicole Chi Amen, a Costa Rican woman of Chinese descent, has always been on the outside looking in. The opening scene of her moving debut feature replicates this predicament visually: her face pressed against a metal barricade, she looks through a hole in the opaque facade with interest. The camera is observing, too, and the sight of a house being torn down gradually comes into view. This was once the home of her maternal grandmother, a Guangdong native.

Text description provided by the architects. In the heart of Marmilla, architect Martino Picchedda transforms the village's main entrance into a poetic urban threshold. The design evokes the timeless forms of the Giants' Tombs while celebrating the Sardinian landscape's identity through corten steel, local stone, and light. Here, history and contemporary design converge, creating a welcoming space that tells the story of place and people.

According to the White House, two international groups working on cultural heritage preservation and arts policy are "contrary to the interests of the United States" and "waste taxpayer dollars." The International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) and the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA) are among 66 organizations or treaties from which President Trump withdrew in a memorandum on Wednesday, January 7.

Mummies The Museum of Humanity, Paris Until 25 May 2026

To our knowledge, the (Immigrant Resettlement and Cultural Center) dispute remains unresolved,

The Union flag that led Nelson's fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar could be bought by a UK museum after an export bar was imposed following its sale at auction. The Union Flag flew from the Royal Sovereign, the ship that led the British charge at the Battle of Trafalgar, and still features burn marks and splinters inflicted during the battle. It was recently put up for sale and sold for £450,000.

Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic has long been accused of exercising total control over the Western Balkan country. Now he has embarked on a new field of activity: He has declared that he will personally file criminal charges against all those he accuses of the "economic sabotage of Serbia." This was prompted by news from the United States that Jared Kushner, the son-in-law and close confidant of US President Donald Trump, has canceled a huge, much-vaunted planned investment in Belgrade.

The nationalist populist Serbian president railed against critics of the project for destroying an investment of "at least 750 million" ($880 million). "As a state and as a nation, we are major losers," Vucic said. "We will now be left with a destroyed building, and it is only a matter of time before bricks and other parts start falling off it, because no one will ever touch it again," Vucic told media in Belgrade.

Because important projects should unite, not divide, and out of respect for the citizens of Serbia and Belgrade, we are withdrawing our application and this time we are stepping aside,

No water, no life, says Sheikh Nidham, a Mandaean religious leader living in the southern Iraqi city of Amarah, on the banks of the river in which he has been regularly immersed since he was a month old. Mandaeans are members of one of the oldest gnostic religions in the world. Southern Iraq has been their homeland for more than a thousand years, particularly in Maysan province. Amarah, the provincial capital, is built around the Tigris. Water is central to their faith and every major life event requires ritual purification. Marriage ceremonies begin in water, and before drawing their last breath, Mandaeans should be taken to the river for a final cleansing.

It was a night at the museum like no other. As the staccato sound of firecrackers and explosions rang out across Martyr's Square in the heart of Tripoli, for once it was not Libya's militias battling it out for a larger stake in the country's oil economy, but a huge firework display celebrating the reopening of one of the finest museums in the Mediterranean.

At slightly larger than California, the African nation of Cameroon is home to roughly 30 million people and more than 300 indigenous languages. But a long-lasting civil war and other humanitarian crises have made the future of those languages uncertain. Today, most Cameroonians in their 40s and 50s are as proficient in their indigenous languages (including Lamnso', Oroko, and Batanga) as they are in a colonial language such as English or French. Their parents, in contrast, spoke indigenous languages more dominantly.