Category Archives: Heritage

‘Birthplace of the nation’ to close as cash-strapped NSW council can’t afford heritage-listed museum

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Exclusive: Sir Henry Parkes memorial school of arts – home of the 1889 Tenterfield oration – to close in a fortnight

The first museum included on the National Trust register will close its doors at the end of the month, leaving its century-old artefacts of federation locked behind glass until further notice.

The Sir Henry Parkes memorial school of arts is the site of the five-time premier’s famous Tenterfield oration in 1889, regarded as the first direct appeal to the public for an Australian nation-state to unite the colonies.

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Acropolis now: crisis as soaring visitor numbers overwhelm Greek treasure

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With cruise ships decanting thousands of tourists in Athens, tough new controls have been imposed at the country’s most visited site

It’s official: more than 25 centuries after it was built and nearly 200 years after it began attracting tourists, the Acropolis will adopt crowd control policies to ease the very modern plague of soaring visitor numbers.

Unprecedented queues at the foot of the site, a dramatic rise in sightseers since the Covid-19 pandemic and unruly scenes at the gateway to the sanctuary have spurred the Greek government to take action.

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RAF proposal to move Dambusters dog’s grave rejected

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West Lindsey council votes down proposal to relocate dog, named after a racial slur, to Norfolk airbase

Councillors have rejected proposals to exhume and relocate a dog buried at the former base of the Dambusters put forward amid concerns about the suitability of the grave’s location once the site is repurposed as accommodation for asylum seekers.

During an extraordinary planning meeting on Wednesday evening, West Lindsey district councillors unanimously voted down an application by RAF Heritage to relocate the dog to an airbase in Norfolk.

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Outcry after tourist carves name on wall at the Colosseum in Rome

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Italy’s culture minister has called for the man who defaced the site with ‘Ivan+Hayley 23’ to be identified and prosecuted

Italian police are on the hunt for a young tourist who carved his and his girlfriend’s names into a wall of the Colosseum, sparking widespread condemnation.

The English-speaking tourist was filmed by an onlooker using keys to engrave “Ivan+Hayley 23” into the wall of the 2,000-year-old Roman amphitheatre on Friday afternoon.

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Pompeii fresco find possibly depicts 2,000-year-old form of pizza

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Ancient painting includes fruit that looks like a pineapple – although it is almost certainly something else

A striking still life fresco resembling a pizza has been found among the ruins of ancient Pompeii, although the dish seems to lack two essential ingredients – tomato and mozzarella – and includes an item that looks suspiciously like a pineapple.

The fresco, which dates back 2,000 years, emerged during excavations in the Regio IX area of Pompeii’s archaeological park, which is close to Naples, the birthplace of pizza. The painting was on a wall in what is believed to have been the hallway of a home that had a bakery in its annexe.

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Camera brings ‘unprecedented clarity’ to restoration of historic artworks

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Technology will allow conservators to use fluorescence to identify and remove ageing varnish with total accuracy

Scientists have developed technology that will revolutionise the restoration of historic works of art by allowing conservators to identify and remove ageing varnish with total accuracy.

A team at King’s College London’s department of physics has harnessed the power of fluorescence to bring “unprecedented clarity” to the conservation process, said Prof Klaus Suhling.

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‘Almost still shines’: 3,000-year-old sword unearthed in Germany

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Object from mid-bronze age, in ‘extraordinary’ state of preservation, was found in grave in Bavaria

A bronze sword more than 3,000 years old , which is so well-preserved that it “almost still shines”, has been unearthed in southern Germany, officials say.

The Bavarian state office for the preservation of historical monuments (BLfD) said the sword, which is believed to date back to the end of the 14th century BC — the middle of the bronze age — was found during excavations last week in Nördlingen, between Nuremberg and Stuttgart.

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Past senses: English Heritage signs point out historic sites’ sounds and smells

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Playful takes on cautionary Ministry of Works signs encourage visitors to have a sensory experience

Fifty years ago, heritage sites in England were covered in signs saying don’t do this, don’t do that, beware coming closer, danger here, keep your children under control and the dreaded we will prosecute you.

Those doom-laden Ministry of Works signs are making a comeback. Or a sort of comeback, as English Heritage announces plans for new signs that will have a more mindful spin.

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Sudan officials fear for historical artefacts threatened by fighting

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Warring factions urged to preserve heritage after video clip appears to show fighters raiding Khartoum museum

Heritage officials in Sudan have pleaded with warring factions to preserve tens of thousands of historical artefacts threatened by fighting in the capital, Khartoum, that is in its eighth week.

A video clip circulating on social media on Friday appeared to show fighters from the Rapid Support Forces entering the bioarchaeology lab of the National Museum in Khartoum and opening storage containers containing mummies and other remains.

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Brown, grimy… and historic: the battle to save Amsterdam’s old bars

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Classic, smoke-stained Dutch drinking spots should be given protected status, say campaigners

On the bar is a dispenser for Dutch jenever – the liquor that inspired British gin – silver taps of lager and 10 hard-boiled eggs at €1 a pop.

Café de Druif is one of Amsterdam’s oldest “brown bars”, or bruine kroegen, and part of a movement to preserve these cosy drinking rooms.

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Buckingham Palace declines to return remains of ‘stolen’ Ethiopian prince, say reports

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Prince Alemayehu, who was taken to England after his father’s citadel was looted, was buried at Windsor Castle in 19th century

Buckingham Palace has reportedly declined a request to return the remains of an Ethiopian prince who came to be buried at Windsor Castle in the 19th century.

Prince Alemayehu, a claimed descendant of the biblical King Solomon, was taken to England – some say “stolen” – after British soldiers looted his father’s imperial citadel after the Battle of Maqdala in 1868.

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Second homes ‘destroying’ Welsh-speaking areas, say campaigners

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More than 1,000 people gather at Caernarfon Castle to demand new law to regulate market and protect communities

More than 1,000 people gathered outside Caernarfon Castle in north Wales for a rally protesting against second homes, which they say are “destroying” Welsh language strongholds.

Members of Cymdeithas yr Iaith (the Welsh Language Society) are calling for a new Property Act to protect communities in language heartlands such as Gwynedd in the north and Pembrokeshire in the south-west.

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Three sections of Roman wall in City of London given protected status

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Remains of once vast riverside structure granted legal protection against unauthorised change

Three sections of a huge but little-known Roman wall, discovered under the City of London, have been given protected status as scheduled national monuments.

The riverside wall was a once vast stone structure that formed part of the defences of Roman London. Built in the third century AD along the Thames, it connected to the city’s landward fortifications, large sections of which still exist.

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Bobby Moore’s ex-wife urges return of lost shirt from 1966 World Cup final

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Tina Moore unsure how red England shirt left her possession but it is now in hands of mystery private buyer

It is the most famous moment in English football. Bobby Moore, the England captain, hoisted on the shoulders of his teammates, holding the World Cup trophy aloft in 1966.

While the moment was captured on camera and preserved for posterity, the red England shirt the centre-half was wearing, with the number six on the back, has been lost – and Moore’s ex-wife is urging its current owner to return it.

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York and Shetland sites join UK bids for Unesco world heritage status

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The list of hopefuls also includes sites in Birkenhead, Northern Ireland and the Cayman Islands

The historic city centre of York and ancient settlements in the Shetlands are among seven sites backed by the UK government to win Unesco world heritage status, it has been announced.

York, which boasts the Minster and enjoys a rich history bequeathed by its Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Norman inhabitants, and three ancient settlements known as the “zenith of iron age Shetland” join five other sites announced on the “tentative list” to bid for the status.

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‘An attack on culture’: Athens film fans fight threat to historic cinemas

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Directors such as Yorgos Lanthimos have joined campaign to save the Astor and Ideal from hotel and office developments

The spectre of two historic Athens cinemas being closed by commercial interests bent on turning them into a hotel and office block has spurred film-makers to get in front of the camera with pleas to stop the process.

Directors of international acclaim have appealed to save the buildings amid mounting public disquiet over the pace of development in one of Europe’s oldest capitals. Leading the charge, Costa-Gavras, the Paris-based film director who shot to fame with the political drama Z, released when Greece was under military rule, called the existence of the Ideal and Astor cinemas indispensable for the enjoyment of film in an era when the “barbarism” of movies being watched on TV and mobile phones was widespread.

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Indigenous tattooist becomes Vogue’s oldest ever cover star at 106

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Apo Whang-Od appears on front of Philippine edition and is credited with keeping batok form of art alive

An Indigenous tattooist in the Philippines credited with helping to keep alive a form of the art known as batok has become the oldest Vogue cover star after appearing in the Philippine edition of the magazine at the age of 106.

Apo Whang-Od, who is from Buscalan, a remote, mountainous village in the Kalinga province of the northern Philippines, began tattooing at 16. Once described as the last remaining mambabatok, or traditional Kalinga tattooist, she has since inspired a new generation to learn batok, said Vogue. Batok involves tapping the tattoo into the skin by hand, using a thorn, which is dipped in soot and natural dye, and is attached to a bamboo stick.

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Export ban on Coleridge anti-slavery manuscript as British buyer sought

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Handwritten poem in Greek from his undergraduate years has recommended sale price of £20,400

A handwritten manuscript containing a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge railing against the slave trade has been temporarily barred from leaving the UK in the hope that a British buyer can be found.

The poem, written in Greek by Coleridge across six mottled pages, attacks the horrors of slavery and condemns those who overlooked the conditions of enslaved people on the Middle Passage transportation route in the late 18th century.

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No plans to return Parthenon marbles to Greece, says Rishi Sunak

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PM says British Museum collection is funded by taxpayers and protected by law

Rishi Sunak has vowed to protect the Parthenon marbles from being returned to Greece, saying they remain a “huge asset” to the UK.

The prime minister stuck by commitments made by his predecessors Liz Truss and Boris Johnson to safeguard the treasures at the British Museum in London.

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‘It’s a bit too castle-y’: plans to turn Cumbrian fortress into eco-attraction

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Young ‘custodian’ hopes to make ancestral home of Muncaster first carbon-zero castle in UK

In 1990, the year Ewan Frost-Pennington was born, the final bears left Muncaster Castle in the westernmost corner of the Lake District. Winnie, an Asiatic black bear, departed Cumbria for Dudley zoo, along with Inca, her daughter, and her sister, Gretel.

Three decades later, the bear pit has now been covered over with a solar farm. It is the brainchild of Frost-Pennington, the heir to the 800-year-old pink granite fortress, as he tries to make Muncaster the first carbon-zero castle in the UK.

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