In 1972, UNESCO adopted the “Convention concerning the Protection of the World’s Cultural and Natural Heritage”, and formed the governing body, the World Heritage Center. It also formed the World Heritage Committee, while the member states started to nominate different sites for the World Heritage List.
This World Heritage List today includes 851 sites: 660 cultural, 166 natural and 25 mixed. The sites are distributed in 141 countries; seven of them are in Egypt.
The first site is “Memphis and its Necropolis – the Pyramid Field from Giza to Dahshour”. It includes all the pyramids from the Giza Plateau up to Dahshour: the Giza Pyramids, Abu Sir, Saqqara and Dahshour, as well as Abu Rawash. The site incorporates more than a hundred pyramids and thousands of tombs.
The second world heritage site in Egypt is “Historic Cairo”, which includes Fatimid Cairo, Darb el-Ahmar, Saliba, the cemeteries and Fustat. It includes the ‘city of thousand minarets’ as well as the old churches and even the synagogue of Fustat.
The third site is “Ancient Thebes with its Necropolis” or Luxor, with both the east bank, which contains the temples of Luxor and Karnak, and the west bank, which contains the Valley of the Kings with its well-known royal tombs and the Valley of the Queens, famous for the Tomb of Queen Nefertari, the Temple of Hatchepsut, the Rameseum and Medinet Habu, in addition to many other tombs and temples.
The fourth site is the Nubia area – “Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae” – extending about 180 miles from Philae Temple in the north to Abu Simbel in the south, near the borders with Sudan. This is the site that initiated the whole idea of a World Heritage Convention and Center. It contains more than twenty temples, of which the majority was supposed to be submerged under the waters of Lake Nasser.
The fifth world heritage site is “The Monastery of Abu Mina” in the west of Alexandria. This is one of the oldest monasteries in Egypt. Part of it is ancient and part of it modern.
All these five world heritage sites above were added to the World Heritage List in 1979. At the time, the size of the sites was not really taken into consideration. For example, a site like the Giza Plateau could have been inscribed as many sites instead of one, as each of its pyramids is precious.
From 1979 until 2002, no new sites were added to the list. Then UNESCO added two more Egyptian sites; “Saint Catherine’s Monastery”, a unique monument in the heart of the Sinai Peninsula, at a spot with a very special Biblical flavor near mount Moses. The second and the last was “Wadi Al-Hitan” (The Whales’ Valley), added in 2005. This site, which contains whale fossils dating back 40 million years, is the only Egyptian natural heritage site on the list.
Egypt is rich with many more cultural and natural sites and that is why the Egyptian Government is now investing a lot of effort in convincing UNESCO to add more of them to the World Heritage List.
