Heritage with Related Tags
Tomb of Askia
The Mausoleum of Askia is a pyramid-shaped building, 17 metres high, built in 1495 by the Songhai Emperor Askia Muhammad in his capital Gao. It bears witness to the power and wealth of an empire that flourished in the 15th and 16th centuries through its control of trans-Saharan trade, especially in salt and gold. It is also an example of the great tradition of earthen architecture in the West African Sahel. The complex, which includes a pyramid-shaped mausoleum, two flat-roofed mosque buildings, a mosque cemetery and an open-air assembly ground, was built when Gao became the capital of the Songhai Empire, after Askia Muhammad had returned from Mecca and established Islam as the state religion of the empire.
Koutammakou, the Land of the Batammariba
The Kutamaku landscape in northeastern Togo, which stretches into neighbouring Benin, is home to the Batamariba people, whose mud towers (Takienta) have become a symbol of Togo. In this landscape, nature is closely linked to the rituals and beliefs of society. The 50,000-hectare cultural landscape is remarkable for the architecture of its towers, which reflect the social structure, farmland and forest, and the connection between people and the landscape. Many of the buildings are two-storey high, and those with granaries are almost spherical with a cylindrical base. Some buildings have flat roofs, others have conical thatched roofs. They are clustered in villages, which also include ritual spaces, springs, rocks and sites reserved for initiation ceremonies.
Wadden Sea
The Wadden Sea is the world's largest continuous intertidal sand and mud flat system. The area encompasses the Dutch Wadden Sea Conservation Area, the German Wadden Sea National Park in Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, and most of the Danish Wadden Sea Marine Protected Area. It is a vast, mild-climatic, relatively flat coastal wetland environment formed by an intricate interaction of physical and biological factors that have resulted in numerous transitional habitats including tidal channels, sandy beaches, seagrass meadows, mussel beds, sandbanks, mud flats, salt marshes, estuaries, beaches and dunes. The area is home to a wide range of plant and animal species, including marine mammals such as seals, grey seals and harbour porpoises. The Wadden Sea is one of the last remaining large intertidal ecosystems where natural processes continue to operate largely undisturbed.
Shahr-i Sokhta
Shahr-i Sokhta, meaning "the burned city", lies at the intersection of Bronze Age trade routes across the Iranian plateau. The remains of the mud-brick city represent the emergence of the first complex society in eastern Iran. Founded around 3200 BC, the city was inhabited during four major periods until 1800 BC, during which time several distinct areas developed within the city: areas where monuments were built, and separate areas for living, burials, and manufacturing. Watercourse diversions and climate change led to the city's final abandonment in the early second millennium AD. The buildings, cemeteries, and large number of important artifacts unearthed here, as well as their excellent state of preservation due to the dry desert climate, make the site a rich source of information about the emergence of complex societies from 3000 BC and the connections between them.
Migratory Bird Sanctuaries along the Coast of Yellow Sea-Bohai Gulf of China (Phase I)
The property contains the world's largest system of intertidal mudflats. These mudflats, as well as swamps and shallows, are extremely fertile and support many species of fish and crustaceans. The intertidal zones of the Yellow Sea/Bohai Bay are of global importance for the aggregation of many migratory bird species that use the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. Large numbers of birds, including some of the world's most endangered species, rely on the coastline as a stopover to moult, rest, overwinter or nest.
Asante Traditional Buildings
Located northeast of Kumasi, these structures are the last remnants of the great Ashanti civilization, which reached its peak in the 18th century. Because the houses are built of mud, wood and straw, they are vulnerable to the erosion of time and weather.