All About World Heritage Sites
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Israel and the United States stopped paying their UNESCO dues in 2011, after the organization became the first UN organ to recognize Palestine as a member state. The government is set to fund increased development of Hebron’s Jewish heritage, with money it saved by not paying its annual dues to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
If you are wondering what to do in Israel, then you are in for a treat! Here are the best things to do in Israel just for you.
Source: 15 Best Things To Do In Israel
Masada—the remote mountain-plateau in the Judean Desert, where Herod built a palace-fortress and where Jewish Zealots made their last stand against the Romans—is being excavated once again.
Source: Masada Dig Reveals a Pleasure-Garden at King Herod’s Palace – Biblical Archaeology Society
Towering over the infamous Dead Sea, the over 2,000-year-old Masada fortress is one of the world’s greatest wonders. Here’s what it’s like to visit!
The Real World History Behind Rogue One: A Star Wars Story‘s Jedha City — A Guest Blog by Randy Hutchinson The tragic real world history of one of the key influences behind NiJedha In the Star Wars universe, creators have utilized real world influences in its design, such as Yavin IV and the Mayan Temples […]
Source: The Real World History Behind Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’s Jedha City – Coffee With Kenobi
Architect Nitza Smok’s study led to UNESCO’s proclamation of Tel Aviv as a World Heritage Site but she wishes she had marked more buildings for preservation.
The demolishing of the Dolphinarium in Tel Aviv a week ago reignited the argument about preservation of monuments and the demolishing of public buildings in Israel, especially in Tel Aviv.
Architect Nitza Smok, who assembled the preservation team at the Tel Aviv municipality engineering administration in the early 1990s, conducted the first comprehensive survey of buildings for preservation in the city, and initiated and promoted the city’s statutory preservation program, admits that in retrospect she would have put many more buildings on the preservation list.
“Had I prepared the list today, there would be twice as many,” she says. “For example, I didn’t include the Bialik school (located at the corner of Levinsky Street and Har Zion Street, it was demolished a decade ago), because I never imagined that anyone would demolish it. They demolished it because they thought that it would cost too much to fix the concrete, so they lost a valuable property.”
Read more from source: “Tel Aviv’s buildings are a treasure”
Premier Example of Bauhaus Architecture
Today the White City in Tel Aviv, Israel is considered to be most extensive remnant of Bauhaus architecture. The multi-block city section is so distinctive that UNESCO has designated the whole area to be a World Heritage Site. Today, many of the buildings house urban residents, while upscale stores, coffee shops and boutiques are often found at street level.
A Brief History of Tel Aviv
Before 1900, the coastal city of Tel Aviv in modern day Israel did not exist. At that time the area, that currently houses the Israeli capital was nothing more than a large tract of undeveloped land, situated just outside the ancient port and walled city of Jaffa.
All of this changed in April 1909, when several dozen families gathered on a large parcel of arid land, sitting adjacent to the Mediterranean. Through a lottery system of sea shells, each family received a plot of land, where they could build a home and become part of a new and growing town.
Read more from source: Where Is the White City? And Why Is It Important Today?
This remote palace complex of Masada looks as dramatic as the stories behind it.
Set high on a cliff above a forbidding, lunar-like landscape, the ancient fortress of Masada looks as dramatic as the legend behind it.
The remote palace complex is known as the site of a desperate last stand by Jewish patriots besieged by the Roman army, which allegedly culminated in a mass suicide pact rather than surrender.
The UNESCO World Heritage site stands guard over a barren expanse of the Judean Desert of Israel, broken by the blue of the Dead Sea sparkling in the distance. Pilgrims often arrive before dawn to make the hourlong climb up the winding path leading to the top of the cliff as the sunrise turns the desert sands from brown to rose.
Masada was built as a palace complex under Judean king Herod the Great, who reigned from 37 B.C. to 4 A.D.
Read more from source: Video of the Ancient Desert Fortress of Masada, Israel
The presence in the Judean Lowlands of thick and homogeneous chalk sub-strata enabled numerous caves to be excavated and managed by Man. The property includes a complete selection of chambers and man-made subterranean networks, of different forms and for different activities. They are situated underneath the ancient twin cities of Maresha and Bet Guvrin, and in the surrounding areas, constituting a “city under a city”. They bear witness to a succession of historical periods of excavation and use, over a period of 2,000 years. Initially, the excavations were quarries, but they were later converted for various agricultural and local craft industry purposes, including oil presses, columbaria, stables, underground cisterns and channels, baths, tombs and places of worship, and hiding places during troubled times, etc. With their density, diversified activities, use over two millennia and the quality of their state of preservation, the complexes attain an Outstanding Universal Value.
Overview
Source: Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Judean Lowlands as a Microcosm of the Land of the Caves
The Incense Route was a network of trade routes extending over two thousand kilometers to facilitate the transport of frankincense and myrrh from the Yemen and Oman in the Arabian Peninsula to the Mediterranean.
The four Nabatean towns of Haluza, Mamshit, Avdat, and Shivta, with their associated fortresses and agricultural landscapes linking them to the Mediterranean, are situated on a segment of this route, in the Negev Desert, in southern Israel. They stretch across a hundred-kilometer section of the desert, from Moa on the Jordanian border in the east to Haluza in the northwest. Together they reflect the hugely profitable trade in Frankincense from south Arabia to the Mediterranean, which flourished from the third century BCE until the second century CE, and the way the harsh desert was colonized for agriculture through the use of highly sophisticated irrigation systems.
Source: Incense Route – Desert Cities in the Negev – UNESCO World Heritage Site
