[CPProt.net] At risk: rock art, Shackleton's hut and all of Iraq

[Ellie Bruggeman]

At risk: rock art, Shackleton's hut and all of Iraq

The entire country of Iraq, often called the cradle of civilisation, has
made the list of most endangered cultural sites, along with Shackleton's
hut in Antarctica and Western Australia's Dampier rock art complex.

The list of 100 sites, issued by the privately financed World Monuments
Fund every two years, is chosen from nominations made by experts in
archaeology and the arts.

"It's the first time we've listed an entire country in danger," Bonnie
Burnham, the president of the fund, said.

Looting after the 2003 US occupation and the inability to mobilise
restoration efforts in the war-torn region have taken their toll on relics
that date back 10,000 years and could be wiped away, fund organisers said.

About 10,000 sites in Iraq had come under siege.

"It is not only the heritage of Iraq that is at stake," Feisal Amin
al-Istrabadi, Iraq's deputy United Nations ambassador, said. "World
heritage is at stake."

The Iraqi sites include the temple precinct at Babylon in the region where
the Babylonian king Hammurabi enacted the first known code of law. More
than 1000 artefacts had been stolen from the region only to resurface on
the international market, the deputy ambassador said.

Gunfire between insurgents and international forces had halted much
restoration work.

"Time is of the essence here," said John Stubbs, the vice-president of
programs at the World Monuments Fund.

For some areas, the only thing they could do was "wait, watch and pray",
Mr Stubbs said.

While many of the endangered sites are ancient, others are from the more
recent past, including Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1908 expedition hut in
Antarctica and the American author Ernest Hemingway's house in Cuba, Finca
Vigia, built in 1886.

Also on the list is the Modernist building at 2 Columbus Circle in New
York. The vacant New York building is set to become the home of the Museum
of Arts and Design and faces extensive changes to the original 1965 design
by the architect Edward Durell Stone.

Endangered sites also include locations in Italy, India, China, Peru,
Mexico, Syria, Ireland, Indonesia, Samoa and Nepal.

The New York-based World Monuments Fund has distributed about $US35
million ($45 million) to restoration efforts since 1996.

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