They are places as single or many, which are put by the UNESCO on the World Heritage list, and are declared by them as having ‘Universal outstanding value’.
There are three types of such sites:
- Cultural: they are either:
- Historical buildings & towns.
- Sculptures and paintings
- Natural: they are the places that are created by nature, which are:
- Appear as a record for the geological changes and evolution of earth
- Give prominent examples of how nature changed over the years and centuries.
- Have rare phenomena of nature
- Natural habitat for endangered and rare animals or plants.
- Mixed:
That have both elements of both cultural and natural with a ratio of 3:1.
New sites are added to this list by mid-year annually.
These sites are of great important to the countries themselves as they encourage the tourism increasing the national income, though some of these sites are endangered by natural dangers or pollution, for examples, and are put on a list called the List of World Heritage in Danger, which they UNESCO takes special care for them and fund their renovation and renewal beside doing so by default for the developing countries.
Example for one of the Heritage places in Egypt:
Dahshūr:
On the west bank of the River Nile, near the pyramid of Ṣaqqārah, to its south, lies the pyramid of Dahshūr, on the northern part of Egypt. It was enlisted by the UNESCO, with other places in the World Heritage list during the year of 1979. These places included Abū Ṣīr, Ṣaqqārah, Abū Ruwaysh, and the Pyramids of Giza, which all are part of the ancient city of Memphis.
Dahshūr are contain five pyramids, which two of them were built by the King Snefru (reign: 2575 – 2551 BC) of the 4th Dynasty (2575 – 2465 BC), one of them which is called Rhomboidal, false, bent or blunted Pyramid due to the difference of its slopes, which on one side it was 52° which made it look so vertical, so it was reduced at the top to be 43.5°, and may that’s because it was an early attempt to build a pyramid.
The second king Snefru’s pyramid, was the first true pyramid to ever be built, with a slope angle of 43°, it’s called the red pyramid and it’s the northern one of them.
The most preserved one in the only pyramid of the Old Kingdom (2575 – 2130 BC) with two entrances.
The other three pyramids are built in the reigning era of the 12th Dynasty (1938 – 1756 BC), but alas were not well preserved, may be due to their inner building of mud bricks.
It’s well known that the 12th Dynasty royal families’ tombs contained a vast amount of personal belongings and jewelry, which represent the highest level of advancement in ancient Egyptian metalworking and art.
In 1994 one of the most important jewelry caches was discovered at Dahshūr, which belonged to Queen Weret, during an excavation by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
