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The Politics of Peril: UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger
No full textThis article focuses on the ways that threatened heritage sites are caught up in complex deliberations of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee around inscription to the List of World Heritage in Danger. Through quantitative and qualitative analyses of Committee decision-making from 1979–2018, we observe geopolitical inequity and bureaucratic inefficacy characterizing the implementation of the List in Danger that prevent the realization of its envisioned purpose as a collaborative tool for garnering international investment in preservation. We argue that this situation stems from the development of diplomatic practices used by powerful States Parties to ensure their sites are only ever “considered” rather than “inscribed” on the List in Danger. The proliferation of “consideration” for the List in Danger effectively erases situations of danger rather than resolving threats in any real sense, subjecting endangered sites on the World Heritage List to further peril.</p
Indoor thermal comfort in contemporary Sri Lankan urban houses: a simulation study
No full textIn this study, we estimate the prevalent thermal comfort regime in three of the most common contemporary urban house types in the Colombo Metropolitan Region (CMR). Using a parametric building energy simulation software, the study simulates the indoor Operative Temperature that would result from five passive design options to determine their potential to improve the indoor comfort levels. The simulation results show that passive strategies are no longer able to bring about adequate levels of thermal comfort. Strategies for modest improvements in the indoor bio-climate in contemporary Sri Lankan urban houses are proposed.</p
Applications of Non-destructive Tests for Diagnosis of Heritage Buildings: Case Studies from Singapore and Malaysia
No full textNon-destructive tests have been increasingly used in historic buildings not only for pre-restoration investigation but also as useful tools to evaluate the effectiveness of eventual interventions. These tests can complement and supplement destructive tests like laboratory analysis of extracted samples as long as a sound sampling plan has been put in place to commensurate with the pattern and extent of dilapidation and materials distribution. Common methods employed in projects in Singapore and Malaysia include the infrared thermography, ground penetrating radar, microwave moisture tomography and ultrasonic pulse echo tomography. The paper discusses about a selection of case studies, demonstrating the application of various techniques for the identification of hidden details, defects and deterioration, and moisture detection.</p
An ancient Harappan genome lacks ancestry from steppe pastoralists or Iranian farmers
No full textWe report an ancient genome from the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC). The individual we sequenced fits as a mixture of people related to ancient Iranians (the largest component) and Southeast Asian hunter-gatherers, a unique profile that matches ancient DNA from 11 genetic outliers from sites in Iran and Turkmenistan in cultural communication with the IVC. These individuals had little if any Steppe pastoralist-derived ancestry, showing that it was not ubiquitous in northwest South Asia during the IVC as it is today. The Iranian-related ancestry in the IVC derives from a lineage leading to early Iranian farmers, herders, and hunter-gatherers before their ancestors separated, contradicting the hypothesis that the shared ancestry between early Iranians and South Asians reflects a large-scale spread of western Iranian farmers east. Instead, sampled ancient genomes from the Iranian plateau and IVC descend from different groups of hunter-gatherers who began farming without being connected by substantial movement of people.</p
Linking past cultural developments to palaeoenvironmental changes from 5000 BP to present: A climate-culture reconstruction from Harshad estuary, Saurashtra, Gujarat, India
No full textAn assessment of palynofacies and sediment data from a core sampled at Harshad estuary, Saurashtra, Gujarat, India was carried out for palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic reconstruction. Drawing on these data we evaluate their relation to cultural/economic changes during the early to late Harappan phases in the peripheral zone of southwest monsoon. Between ca. 5400-5100 yr BP, palynofacies and sediment particle size indicated a high terrestrial influx, interpreted as a period of higher monsoon precipitation. These proxies then indicated a protracted period of diminished freshwater inundation between ca. 5100-1400 yr BP. At the start of this period, archaeobotanical evidence from studied sites in the region also shows the shift in cropping pattern from large grain winter cereals during the Urban Harappan phases to millet based agriculture during the Post-Urban phase, indicating human adaptation in response to climate change. These strategies also appeared contingent on the geographic niche and site type, size and density. The Harshad core from 1400 yr BP to recent times also demonstrates fluctuating precipitation proxies between lower and higher values which may broadly correspond to climate events such as the Medieval Climate Optimum (MCO) and Little Ice Age (LIA), as well reflecting increasing anthropogenic pressures impacting the depositional environment of the estuary.</p
Advertising “the East„: Encounters with the Urban and the Exotic in Late Colonial Asia Pacific
No full textIn the late nineteenth century, shipping routes from the east coast of Australia to Southeast Asia developed quickly to serve trade in commodities drawn from industrially scaled extraction and agriculture. This produced an innovative architecture of agricultural buildings, warehouses, and port facilities. On the back of this, in the early 1900s shipping companies began to promote tourism to the Dutch East Indies and Singapore in Australia. Two shipping networks of this kind were those of the Australian firm Burns Philp and the Dutch-owned company KPM. Both were active in advertising tourism to Southeast Asia in their own publications, including BP Magazine. Both were also regular advertisers in the magazine Walkabout. The advertising in this publication drew on imagery that projected the luxury of tourist accommodation and the exoticness of travel destinations. The exotic was pictured through images of young women, remote landscapes, and indigenous architecture. Such images disregarded labour practices entailed in industrial-scale agriculture and the region’s innovative commercial architecture. However, the ports in Southeast Asia promoted in such publicity did not correspond to the exotic images through which they were advertised. Rather, they were colonial cities with an architectural and urban modernity that might have surprised visitors.</p
Formalizing infrastructures, civic networks and production of space: Bedouin informal settlements in Be'er-Sheva metropolis
No full textWith worldwide proliferation of impoverished informal settlements, scholars are paying increasing attention to related political struggles around issues of formalization and provision of social and physical infrastructures. By examining such struggles in informal Bedouin settlements in Be'er-Sheva metropolis, Israel, we contribute to this trend by explaining how complex trans-local civic networks become key agents in promoting such goals. We use Lefebvre's 'production of space' perspective as an outline to conceptualize the relations between interventions in perceived space (infrastructures), lived space (symbolic recognition) and conceived space (formalization) of informal spaces. As we show, the civic networks construct symbolism of suffering population and rights deprivations while establishing infrastructures as 'facts on the ground.' This research thus sheds new light on the way civic networks become increasingly prominent in the production of contemporary in/formal space.</p
Snakes and Gutters: <em>Nāga</em> Imagery, Water Management, and Buddhist Rainmaking Rituals in Early South Asia
No full textVisitors to early (second century bce–fifth century ce) Buddhist monastic sites across South Asia encountered prominent figural images of nāgas, serpent-like beings who were believed to be closely connected to water and rainfall. Such images are commonly identified as guardians and occasionally have been linked to nearby water systems, such as ponds, tanks, and rivers. Yet, these images have not been studied as an aspect of water regulation within the monasteries themselves. This paper will first consider the water-related challenges that confronted the monks and architects at rock-cut monasteries. Then methods of hydraulic engineering designed to regulate the flow of water at the sites will be considered in relation to the role of nāgaimagery. Their proximity to gutters and tanks reveals the Buddhist reliance on supernatural forces as an aspect of water control. The highly visible nature of this arrangement helps to explain the emergence of ritual texts, primarily after the fourth century ce, in which Buddhist ritualists adopt the role of rainmakers. These elaborate ceremonies promise to bring rain or end flooding for the benefit of the saṃgha and the wider community. The ritualists invariably invoke a special relationship with the nāgas, whom they enjoin to rectify undesirable conditions. This connection between image and text reveals a centuries-long process by which the monastic community developed an association with weather regulation that was contingent on a cultivated and highly public relationship with Buddhist-friendly nāgas.</p
Towards international: China-aided stadiums in the developing world
No full textForeign aid is a form of international relationship between countries. Building projects are a major form of foreign aid. In the past 60 years, China has constructed over 1400 buildings in the developing world, and many of them are stadiums. This study explores how China exported its overseas-aided stadiums in the developing world and considers the importance of these buildings from an architectural perspective. Through an examination of first-hand materials, this study explains the historic vicissitude of China-aided stadium architecture, analyzes the architectural features of these buildings, and presents case studies of representative examples from each historic stage. The investigation of these buildings from three periods in the 20th and 21st centuries fills a gap in the study of Chinese architecture and modern architectural history.</p
Communities, Identities, Conflict and Appropriation in South Asia
No full textThis chapter examines challenges and controversies for heritage protection and archaeologists in two further case studies from South Asia: the impact caused by the construction of Lahore’s Orange Metro Line in Pakistan and the destruction and post-disaster recording of Jaffna Fort in Sri Lanka. The examples highlight potentially contentious factors that can be brought to the surface during archaeological excavations and initiatives to protect heritage in locations of economic development and politically charged or security sensitive locations. Coningham and Lewer point to the close nexus of archaeology, heritage and identity and remind us that there are limits within which we work and that there are limits to what we can achieve in heritage protection.</p