China to crack down on damage to Great Wall

The State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) will launch a campaign to crack down on criminal damage to the Great Wall.

Visitors to the Great Wall of China just north of Beijing 
[Credit: AFP/Getty Images]

The campaign will involve regular inspections and random checks on protection efforts by authorities in 15 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.

The SACH will open a special tip line for information about violations and damage to the Great Wall from the public.

Built from the third century B.C. to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), the Great Wall stretches over 21,000 kilometers from the northwestern province of Gansu to north China's Hebei Province.

According to SACH statistics, about 30 percent of a 6,200-km section of the wall built in the Ming Dynasty has disappeared, and less than 10 percent is considered well-preserved.

The Great Wall has faced threats from both nature and humans. Earthquakes, rain, wind and other natural elements have left the wall with many decayed and crumbling bricks.

Human activities, such as reckless development by some governments and theft of bricks by local villagers for use as building materials, as well as agriculture near the wall, have damaged the landmark, according to research by the China Great Wall Society.

A lack of protection efforts in remote regions and a weak plan for protection have also contributed to the damage, the society added.

In 2006, China released a national regulation on Great Wall protection. However, Great Wall experts have urged local authorities to draw up more practical measures to better implement the regulation.

This year, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region included Great Wall protection expenditures in its budget. The government of Fangcheng City, Henan Province, began a campaign for conservation experts and local residents to work together to protect the wall.

Source: Xinhua Net [August 02, 2016]

China to crack down on damage to Great Wall

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Ancient underwater city of Pavlopetri at risk

�The community is the best guardian for Pavlopetri and it needs to be helped,� says Dr Nicholas Flemming, a marine geo-archaeologist at the Institute of Oceanography at the University of Southampton.

Pavlopetri was listed on the 2016 World Monuments Watch in October 2015 
[Credit: Kathimerini]

Flemming was the first to discover, in 1967, the Bronze Age city of Pavlopetri, underwater off the coast of southern Laconia in the Peloponnese. He recently went back to the site he first explored almost half a century ago, to observe the delineation of the underwater archaeological site.

Pavlopetri was listed on the 2016 World Monuments Watch in October 2015. Launched in 1996, the World Monuments Watch is issued every two years by the World Monuments Fund, an independent organization devoted to saving the world�s treasured places. The listing of Pavlopetri, it is believed, will help raise awareness about the threats facing the site and foster public participation in its protection.

Underwater ruins face three kinds of threats, says Barbara Euser, president of the Greek chapter of the Alliance for the Restoration of Cultural Heritage (ARCH), which promoted the nomination of Pavlopetri on the World Monuments Watch list: first, pollution caused by commercial ships; second, shifting sediment caused by smaller boats traveling over the archaeological remains can damage the foundations and walls; a third threat is looting of findings from the sea floor.

Flemming and Despina Koutsoumba, an archaeologist at the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities, recently organized an underwater tour at the site. �Some walls can be seen at a depth of half a meter,� Koutsoumba said.

Meanwhile, the Ephorate, the Municipality of Elafonisos and the Regional Authority of the Peloponnese, recently joined forces to promote the site by installing underwater signs, handing out informative material, preparing a waterproof map and designing a tour for visitors.

Creating a sea park is a possibility, Flemming says, adding, however, that authorities should be extremely careful about how they run a Bronze Age underwater site so as to prevent any damage.

Early research at Pavlopetri was carried out in the late 1960s by a team of archaeologists from Cambridge University who mapped the ancient city. About four decades after the first divers visited Pavlopetri, interest in the site resurfaced. In 2009 the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities of the Greek Ministry of Culture, the Hellenic Center for Maritime Research and the University of Nottingham launched a five-year project to outline the history and development of Pavlopetri.

Having explored about 400 underwater archaeological sites, Flemming believes that Pavlopetri still holds many secrets. The city was gradually covered by water thousands of years ago as the sea level rose due to earthquakes and the end of the ice age. However, he says, the ancient city serves as a model of a fishing village that was turned into a port and commercial center, well protected from the natural environment.

�Seamen never make a mistake when they pick a port,� Flemming says. �And that was true five thousand years ago.�

Author: Sakis Ioannidis | Source: Kathimerini [August 01, 2016]

Ancient underwater city of Pavlopetri at risk

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Norwegian youths ruin 5,000 year old rock carving

A 5000-year-old rock carving in Norway which depicts a figure on skis has been "damaged forever" by youths who claim they were trying to improve it.

The 5,000-year-old carving (L) and what remains after being scratched over (R) 
[Credit: NORDLAND FYLKESKOMMUNE]

The two alleged vandals said they had been trying to repair the historical site by carving over the outline of the figure to make it easier to see � but local officials described their makeshift restoration as a "tragedy" for Norway's cultural heritage.

Both youths now risk criminal charges under Norway's Cultural Heritage Act, according to archaeologist Tor-Kristian Storvik, who was the first to survey the damage.

Mr Storvik, the archeologist for Norway's Nordland county, said that he was pleased that the boys had come forward and confessed, but was not ready to retract the crime report sent to the police.

"This is a quite serious violation," he said.

He rushed to the site to survey the damage on Tuesday after someone reported that a sharp object had been used to deface the carvings.

"It's a sad, sad story," he said. "The new lines are both in and outside where the old marks were. We'll never again be able to experience these carvings the way we have for the past 5000 years."

The carving, on the west-coast island of Tro, is one of the country's most famous sites, providing some of the earliest evidence of skiing in the world.

It inspired the symbol used for the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer.

"We have talked to the perpetrators and their families and they want to apologise for what they have done," Bard Anders Lango, the mayor, said.

"It was done out of good intentions. They were trying to make it more visible actually, and I don't think they understood how serious it was."

Author: Richard Orange | Source: The Telegraph [July August 01, 2016]

Norwegian youths ruin 5,000 year old rock carving

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