The World Heritage Committee, during it’s 39th session on June 28, 2015-July 8, 2015 approved the inscription of a second cultural site in France for inclusion on the World Heritage List. 

Champagne Hillsides, Houses and Cellars (France)— The property encompasses sites where the method of producing sparkling wines was developed on the principle of secondary fermentation in the bottle since the early 17^th century to its early industrialization in the 19^th century. The property is made up of three distinct ensembles: the historic vineyards of Hautvilliers, Aÿ and Mareuil-sur-Aÿ, Saint-Nicaise Hill in Reims, and the Avenue de Champagne and Fort Chabrol in Epernay. These three components – the supply basin formed by the historic hillsides, the production sites (with their underground cellars) and the sales and distribution centres (the Champagne Houses) – illustrate the entire champagne production process. The property bears clear testimony to the development of a very specialized artisan activity that has become an agro-industrial enterprise.

The World Heritage Committee, during it’s 39th session on June 28, 2015-July 8, 2015 approved the inscription of a cultural site in France for inclusion on the World Heritage List. 

The Climats, terroirs of Burgundy (France) — The climates are precisely delimited vineyard parcels on the slopes of the Côte de Nuits and the Côte de Beaune south of the city of Dijon. They differ from one another due to specific natural conditions (geology and exposure) as well as vine types and have been shaped by human cultivation. Over time they came to be recognized by the wine they produce. This cultural landscape consists of two parts. Firstly, the vineyards and associated production units including villages and the town of Beaune, which together represent the commercial dimension of the production system. The second part includes the historic centre of Dijon, which embodies the political regulatory impetus that gave birth to the climats system. The site is an outstanding example of grape cultivation and wine production developed since the High Middle Ages.

The World Heritage Committee, during it’s 39th session on June 28, 2015-July 8, 2015 approved the inscription of a second cultural site in Denmark for inclusion on the World Heritage List. 

The Par Force Hunting Landscape in North Zealand (Denmark).  Located about 30 km northeast of Copenhagen, this cultural landscape encompasses the two hunting forests of Store Dyrehave and Gribskov, as well as the hunting park of Jægersborg Hegn/Jægersborg Dyrehave. This is a designed landscape where Danish kings and their court exercised par force hunting, or hunting with hounds, which reached its peak from the Middle Ages to the end of the 16^th century. With hunting lanes laid out in an orthogonal grid pattern, their numbered stone posts, enclosures and hunting lodges, the site demonstrates the application of Baroque landscaping principles to forested areas.

The World Heritage Committee, during it’s 39th session on June 28, 2015-July 8, 2015 approved the inscription of a cultural site in Denmark for inclusion on the World Heritage List. 

Christiansfeld, a Moravian Church Settlement (Denmark) — Founded in 1773 in South Jutland, the site is an example of a planned settlement of the Moravian Church, a Lutheran free congregation centred in Herrnhut, Saxony. The town was planned to represent the Protestant urban ideal, constructed around a central Church square. The architecture is homogenous and unadorned, with one and two-storey buildings in yellow brick with red tile roofs. The democratic organization of the Moravian Church, with its pioneering egalitarian philosophy, is expressed in its humanistic town planning. The settlement’s plan opens onto agricultural land and includes important buildings for the common welfare such as large communal houses for the congregation’s widows and unmarried men and women. The buildings are still used by an influential community of the Moravian Church.

The World Heritage Committee, during it’s 39th session on June 28, 2015-July 8, 2015 approved the inscription of a cultural site in USA for inclusion on the World Heritage List.

San Antonio Missions (United States of America) — The site encompasses a group of five frontier mission complexes situated along a stretch of the San Antonio River basin in southern Texas, as well as a ranch located 37 kilometres to the south. It includes architectural and archaeological structures, farmlands, residencies, churches and granaries, as well as water distribution systems. The complexes were built by Franciscan missionaries in the 18^th century and illustrate the Spanish Crown’s efforts to colonize, evangelize and defend the northern frontier of New Spain. The San Antonio Missions are also an example of the interweaving of Spanish and Coahuiltecan cultures, illustrated by a variety of features, including the decorative elements of churches, which combine Catholic symbols with indigenous designs inspired by nature.

The World Heritage Committee, during it’s 39th session on June 28, 2015-July 8, 2015 approved the inscription of a cultural site in Turkey for inclusion on the World Heritage List. 

Diyarbakir Fortress and Hevsel Gardens Cultural Landscape (Turkey). Located on an escarpment of the Upper Tigres River Basin that is part of the so-called Fertile Crescentthe fortified city of Diyarbakir and the landscape around has been an important centre since the Hellenistic period, through the Roman, Sassanid, Byzantine, Islamic and Ottoman times to the present. The site encompasses the Amida Mound, known as İçkale (inner castle), the 5.8km-long city walls of Diyarbakir with their numerous towers, gates, buttresses, and 63 inscriptions from different periods, as well as Hevsel Gardens, a green link between the city and the Tigris that supplied the city with food and water.

The World Heritage Committee, during it’s 39th session on June 28, 2015-July 8, 2015 approved the inscription of a second cultural site in Iran for inclusion on the World Heritage List.

Underground houses; Maymand, Iran

Cultural Landscape of Maymand (Iran) — Maymand is a self-contained, semi-arid area at the end of a valley at the southern extremity of Iran’s central mountains. The villagers are semi-nomadic agro-pastoralists. They raise their animals on mountain pastures, living in temporary settlements in spring and autumn. During the winter months they live lower down the valley in cave dwellings carved out of the soft rock (kamar), an unusual form of housing in a dry, desert environment.  This cultural landscape is an example of a system that appears to have been more widespread in the past and involves the movement of people rather than animals.

The World Heritage Committee, during it’s 39th session on June 28, 2015-July 8, 2015 approved the inscription of a cultural site in Iran for inclusion on the World Heritage List.

Susa (Iran) — Located in the south-west of Iran, in the lower Zagros Mountains, the property encompasses a group of archaeological mounds rising on the eastern side of the Shavur River, as well as Ardeshir’s palace, on the opposite bank of the river. The excavated architectural monuments include administrative, residential and palatial structures. Susa contains several layers of superimposed urban settlements in a continuous succession from the late 5^th millennium BCE until the 13^th century CE. The site bears exceptional testimony to the Elamite, Persian and Parthian cultural traditions, which have largely disappeared.

UK signs 1954 convention on protecting treasures in war zone
A major international agreement designed to protect cultural property during military conflict is to be finally ratified by the UK.

1954 Hague Convention, set up after the second world war to protect archaeological and historical sites, works of art, manuscripts, books and other objects.

More than 115 countries are party to the agreement, including all United Nations Security Council members, except for the UK.

On June 21 2015, Iranian cultural activists lost one of their important friends, a cultural personality with scientific approach to the Iranian history and cultural heritage.

Dr. Shahriar Adl was the influential figures who put a tremendous endeavor to register many of Iranian heritage. He was a member of French Organization for Scientific Studies. He was also the head of the committee commissioned to prepare “The History of Middle Asia”, a academic work that was bestowed with the UNESCO’s Cultural Medallion in 2009. 

Dr. Adl had studied History of Sciences at Sorbonne, as well as General History of Art, Archeology of the Orient, and the History of Islamic Arts in the Louver School. His doctorate degree was on Iranian and Mid-Asian History.

Dr. Adl, together with Dr. Varjavand and Mr. Amini were the main figures who could save Perspolis from the cluches oF Mr. Khalkhali whose aim was to destroy this unique archeological site.

He also had a major role in the registration of Pasargad site as a world cultural heritage. Later, as the Sivand Dam was completed and threatened this important site, he acted firmly to delimit the height of the lake behind the dam so that it would not harm the site of Cyrus the Great Mausoleum.

Pasargad Heritage Foundation shares this important loss and extends its condolences to his family and many friends and admirers.

His memory will shine even more as the time passes.