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This is a list of cultural heritage sites that have been damaged or destroyed accidentally, deliberately, or by a natural disaster. The list is sorted by continent, then by country.
Cultural heritage can be subdivided into two main types: tangible and intangible. Tangible heritage includes built heritage (such as religious buildings, museums, monuments, and archaeological sites) and movable heritage (such as works of art and manuscripts). Intangible cultural heritage includes customs, music, fashion, and other traditions. [1] [2]
This article mainly deals with the destruction of built heritage; the destruction of movable collectible heritage is dealt with in art destruction, whilst the destruction of movable industrial heritage remains almost totally ignored.
In November 1995 a fire broke out in the Rova of Antananarivo, a royal palace of the Merina Kingdom since the 17th century. The fire destroyed or severely damaged all of its buildings. [15] The last two reconstruction phases started in 2010, and by July 2020 the entire structure had been refurbished. [16]
Parts of the World Heritage Site of Timbuktu were intentionally destroyed in the aftermath of the 2012 Fall of Timbuktu. [17] [18] [19]
During the Benin Expedition of 1897 the British Empire launched a military campaign against Benin City, the capital of the Kingdom of Benin, during which much of the city was burned and numerous artifacts were looted. [20]
The 2021 Table Mountain fire partially or completely gutted several significant buildings and collections in the University of Cape Town. This included: [21]
The medieval city of Great Zimbabwe has faced the removal of gold and artifacts due to amateur digging by early colonial antiquarians. [26] Further damage was caused by various reconstruction attempts and reckless behavior of visitors, as well as natural damage from vegetation growth, weathering, and settling of foundations. [27] [28]
In March 2001, a pair of 6th-century monumental statues known as the Buddhas of Bamiyan were dynamited by the Taliban, which had declared them heretical idols. [29]
Kond Mosque in Yerevan was partially demolished in the 1960s. [30] in 1990, another mosque was pulled down with a bulldozer. [31]
Multiple sites of Armenian cultural heritage were destroyed by the Azerbaijani authorities as part of their de-Armenization campaign: [32]
At least 43 Shia mosques, including the ornate 400-year-old Amir Mohammed Braighi Mosque and many other religious structures, were destroyed by the Bahraini government during the Bahraini uprising of 2011. [37] [38]
Several landmarks associated with the founding leader of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, were destroyed or damaged in arson attacks and looting that followed the non-cooperation movement. The destroyed landmarks included his former residence in Dhaka, which had been converted into the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum, as well as the Mujibnagar Memorial Complex. Other cultural institutions were also destroyed in the violence, including the 19th-century Bir Chandra Public Library in Comilla. [39] [40]
In 2024, a fire destroyed the National Art Gallery in Sukhumi and all but 150 of the 4,000 paintings in its collection. [62]
Kraton Majapahit, the royal palace of Majapahit emperors, was destroyed in the Demak–Majapahit conflicts. What remained of the palace and the fortifications around it was further looted by treasure hunters during the Dutch colonial era. [71]
Candi Number 11, also known as Candi Sungai Batu Estate, a 1,200-year-old ruin of a tomb-temple located in the Bujang Valley historical complex in Kedah, was demolished in 2013 by housing developers who claimed not to have known the historical significance of the stone edifice. [111]
On 7 February 2012, in the aftermath of the coup in which President Mohamed Nasheed was overthrown, the National Museum was stormed by Islamists who destroyed Buddhist artifacts. [112] Most of the Buddhist physical history of the Maldives was obliterated. [113] [114] Hindu artifacts were also targeted for obliteration, and the actions have been compared to the attacks on the Buddhas of Bamiyan by the Taliban. [115] [116] [117]
During the Yugoslavia period there was destruction of Albanian heritage endorsed by the state. [194] A number of Albanian cultural sites in Kosovo were destroyed during the Kosovo conflict (1998–1999) which constituted a war crime violating the Hague and Geneva Conventions. [195] 225 out of 600 mosques in Kosovo were damaged, vandalised, or destroyed alongside other Islamic architecture and Islamic libraries and archives with records spanning 500 years. [196] [197] Additionally 500 Albanian owned kulla dwellings (traditional stone tower houses) and three out of four well preserved Ottoman period urban centres located in Kosovo cities were badly damaged resulting in great loss of traditional architecture. [198] [199] Kosovo's public libraries, in particular 65 out of 183 were completely destroyed with a loss of 900,588 volumes. [200] [201] During the war, Islamic architectural heritage posed for Yugoslav Serb paramilitary and military forces as Albanian patrimony with destruction of non-Serbian architectural heritage being a methodical and planned component of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. [199] [202]
During World War II, a number of Serbian Orthodox religious sites were damaged or destroyed. [194] During the 1968 and 1981 protests, Serbian Orthodox religious sites were the target of vandalism. This continued during the 1980s. [194] NATO bombing in March–June 1999 resulted in some accidental damage to churches and a mosque. Revenge attacks against Serbian religious sites commenced following the conflict and the return of hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanian refugees to their homes. [203] Serbian cultural sites in Kosovo were systematically destroyed in the aftermath of the Kosovo War [204] [205] [206] [207] and 2004 ethnic violence. [208] [209] According to the International Center for Transitional Justice this includes 155 destroyed Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries as well as Medieval Monuments in Kosovo, which were inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger. [210] [211]
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also see: Heritage conservation in Canada; "Worst Losses Archive" by National Trust for Canada
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