Until June 2013, that is. Then, new excavations started under the leadership of Dr Chirikure from the University of Cape Town. Chirikure and his team discovered a large area with massive stone walls, huge piles of fossilised animal excrement, pottery, spinning wheels and thousands of glass beads that testify to thriving trade with other countries, probably India and China. Carbon dating indicates that Mapela was as a flourishing community that existed continuously from the early 8th century until well into the 18th.

'Mapela lies virtually untouched in a rather inaccessible area, and is unique in several respects,' says Per Ditlef Fredriksen, associate professor of archaeology at the University of Oslo. Since June 2014 he has been Dr Chirikure's collaboration partner and head of the research project that will dig deeper into the ecological history of Mapela to find out more about how people and the environment mutually affected each other in the Shashi-Limpopo region.

Mapela is unique, but also one of many

Ecological history studies the complex interplay between people and the environment through the centuries.

'In other words, the question is not only how people have adapted to climate change; it's also a fact that urban societies generate climate change,' Fredriksen points out.

The forgotten stonewalled site at Mapela Hill will be used as a case study in the project, but this is only one of a number of urban, historical communities that have been discovered in the Shashi-Limpopo region. The more famous ruined cities of Khami and Great Zimbabwe, both on UNESCO's World Heritage List, are also located in this part of Southern Africa.

'We are undertaking excavations in several locations in the area to obtain a better understanding of the development of all these world heritage sites, since the relationship between them remains unclarified.'

More concerned with the common folk

Until now, researchers have been mostly concerned with the elite and the elite culture that has been uncovered in places such as Great Zimbabwe and other well-known historical sites in the region. The common folk, on the other hand, were not deemed to be of equal interest ‒ until now.

'We wish to learn more about the relationship between the common population and the elite. Part of Mapela's uniqueness is that this site shows traces of all the three elite cultures in the area. The material culture testifies to this fact,' Fredriksen explains.

'Especially the jewellery, but even the fantastically constructed stone walls are extremely rich in symbols. Our findings in Mapela include traces of the stone walls of Khami.'

Using climate data from the start

'Climate and the environment have previously been topics raised in the debate over the urbanisation of Southern Africa. However, this new interdisciplinary project proceeds several steps further in the direction of natural science,' Fredriksen says.

'We include climate data at an early stage when establishing research questions. Our objective is to obtain a deeper insight into the associations between climate, environment and socioeconomic and political strategies.'

Today, Mapela is located in an underdeveloped and marginal agricultural area, and researchers have assumed that this was an arid region earlier as well, and that Mapela was a regional centre of little importance. New findings, however, indicate the opposite.

A society against all odds

Mapela must have been larger than the known locality of Mapungubwe, where the elite is thought to have lived. Perhaps even the climate was quite different in earlier times.

'Was Mapela a community that existed against all odds?'

'That is an extremely interesting question. After all, Mapela continued to exist for centuries, while other communities, such as Mapungubwe, perished. Why? This is one of the questions we will attempt to answer.'

'Could this project provide new knowledge about the ways in which societies have adapted to climate change?'

'It's very complex, but hopefully we will be able to contribute to this,' says Fredriksen. He refers to the achievements of the University of Cape Town in the field of climate research.

'We are in this project to learn from the South Africans, and we have a lot to learn from them,' he concludes.

For more information see: Zimbabwe Culture before Mapungubwe: New Evidence from Mapela Hill, South-Western Zimbabwe. PLoS ONE (2014)

Author: Mari Kildahl | Source: University of Oslo [May 30, 2015]

Historical artifacts were discovered during the construction of Silivri Energy A.Ş.’s wind power plant belonging to businessman Abdullah Tivnikli in the village last February.

Among the artifacts were many Hellenistic- and Roman-era tombs and one-meter walls. After the protection board failed to declare the area a first-degree archaeological site, the company reportedly suggested to the board: “We cannot protect the field against treasure hunters. Let’s pour concrete on it and build wind turbines on it.”

The suggestion provoked a heated discussion on the preservation board, with only Dr. Aslıhan Yurtsever Beyazıt speaking out against the proposal. While other members recommended documenting the findings before pouring concrete on the site, Beyazıt demanded examinations at the site, but no investigation has yet been conducted.

On June 15, 2011, the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality made amendments to its master plan for the construction of the wind power plant close to Silivri’s Fener, Kurfallı and Akören villages. The amendment was approved by the Istanbul Municipal Council in 2012.

A decision was subsequently made to build 21 52.5 MW turbines on an area of 440,000 square meters. The company started the construction last year, while the archaeological artifacts were found on the land of two turbines at the beginning of this year.

The Istanbul Archaeology Museum was informed about the artifacts, and further excavations by museum officials unearthed valuable architectural remains dating back to the late Byzantine era in the 11th and 12th century A.D.

The presence of many Byzantine-era tombs in the immediate vicinity suggests there could be a monastery in the area, according to officials. “This is a very important development for Thrace and Istanbul archaeology. It should be declared a first-degree archaeological site immediately,” one of the officials said.

“Since brick pieces were not found in the remains of the wall and a roughhewn stone was seen, it might be a Roman-era settlement,” the Istanbul Archaeology Museum said in a statement. “The remains of a structure, which is made up of big block stones, is thought to have been a wall from the Hellenistic era. The area might have been a Hellenistic and Roman settlement because the ceramic pieces around this structure show Hellenistic and Roman-era characteristics. The area might have served as a graveyard in the Byzantine era.”

Author: Ömer Erbil | Source: Hurriyet Daily News [July 10, 2015]

Despite providing some of the oldest art in the world, Africa’s rock art tradition has long been overlooked by archaeologists and art historians alike.

Now the British Museum and Kenyan-based archaeological charity TARA (Trust for African Rock Art) are working to preserve this endangered heritage.

“The Museum wants to make Africa’s rock art available to both scholars and the general public alike. We hope to both protect and share this remarkable history for free with a global audience,” says Elizabeth Galvin, Curator of the African Rock Art Image Project.

The rock art tradition began in Africa 50,000 years ago, but abstract engravings may be up to 77,000 years old. It long predates writing, so serves as an important historical window into the culture and beliefs of early humans, and the world in which they lived. Today only a handful of isolated groups engage in the tradition, with a few sites still being used for fertility and rainmaking rituals.

The places in which ancient rock art is found have been little documented and largely unprotected, leading to a deterioration of the sites and the art itself. In 1996, TARA was set up, in order to record and protect the rich rock art heritage of the African continent.

The Nairobi-based NGO are committed to improving awareness about this tradition, and the endangered state that rock art sites are in.

According to the Mexican Secretariat of Foreign Affairs – a department within the Mexican government – UNESCO will now offer the nine sites “special protection”, with the heritage body and government working together to impose, promote and implement humanitarian international law at the locations.

Included under the new agreement are the pre-Columbian era cities of Palenque, Teotihuacan, Chichen Itza, Yucatan, El Tajin, and Uxmal, as well as the ancient Mayan city of Calakmul and the archaeological zones of Monte Alban and Paquime.

"This corresponds as much to the intention that Mexicans' cultural heritage will progressively have greater protection as it does to commitments by the Mexican government to impose, promote and implement humanitarian international law," said a statement by the Secretariat.

The registry process has taken two years to complete, with several institutions including the Secretariat and the National Anthropology and History Institute starting the process in 2013.

The sites will now prepare plans ahead of potential natural or man-made disasters, with UNESCO striving to combat cultural trafficking and working towards prevention or mitigation of damage to the heritage sites.

Author: Tom Anstey | Source: Leisure Management [May 11, 2015]

Lima is one of the world's largest desert cities and relies for water on rivers that flow out of the Andes. But those rivers diminish to a trickle during a long dry season, leaving the population of almost 9 million with intermittent water supplies.

Now the city's water utility company, Sedapal, has decided to invest in conservation projects in the Andes to keep the rivers flowing and taps running. And researchers have discovered that the most cost-effective way is to revive a system of ancient stone canals, known locally as amunas, that were built in the Andes by the Wari culture between AD 500 and 1000, centuries before the rise of the Incas.

Forgotten paths

The canals captured water from rivers in the mountains during the rainy season and took it to places where it could infiltrate rocks that fed year-round springs further down the mountains, so maintaining river flow during the dry season.

The amunas fell into disrepair long ago and had been largely forgotten. In most places, their water now quickly returns to the rivers. But hydrologists such as Bert De Bièvre of Condesan, a Lima-based non-governmental organisation behind the project, say re-grouting the lined stretches of the canals with cement would allow them to resume their original purpose.

"The idea is to build a timelag into the hydrological system, delaying water run-off for weeks or even months until it benefits water supply in the dry season," De Bièvre says.

SEDEPAL has now decided to fund the plan by taking 1 per cent from its water charges for the next five years. The costs are estimated to be $23 million.

Holding back the flood

Lima has water shortages for seven months of the year but during the other five months, the Rimac, Chillon and Lurin rivers, which pass through Lima on their way to the Pacific Ocean, regularly cause floods and landslips. Keeping floodwaters back for the dry season makes obvious sense.

Research into the hydrology of individual canals is still in progress. "We have been injecting ink into the canal water to see where it resurfaces," says De Bièvre. But he is confident that the project could revive 50 amunas, mostly in the Chillon catchment.

According to a study by De Bièvre and Gena Gammie, a water specialist at Forest Trends, an NGO based in Washington DC that is backing the project, that should be enough to increase water supplies to Lima by 26 million cubic metres, and reduce the city's current water deficit in the dry season by as much as 60 per cent.

According to the study, other green investment initiatives that could keep water on the mountainsides for longer include reviving forests, wetlands and ancient agricultural terraces, and restricting livestock grazing on upland pastures. But the study found that reviving amunas would be by far the cheapest option, costing less than a hundredth as much as water from the city's new desalination plant.

Author: Fred Pearce | Source: New Scientist [April 20, 2015]

UNESCO and UNITAR-UNOSAT (United Nations Institute for Training and Research- United Nations Operational Satellite Applications Program) signed an agreement to better protect the world's cultural and natural heritage sites by using geospatial photographic capabilities, UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova said Wednesday at a conference in London. The agreement comes as ancient sites in the Middle East are under assault by terrorist organizations which include the Islamic State (IS).

IS overtook the 2,000 year-old archaeological site at Palmyra, Syria, a city of Greek and Roman ruins, in May and has threatened to destroy it. Bokova said IS has destroyed mausoleums, temples and statues around the area on a wide scale, and planted explosives within the ancient city. It previously destroyed Assyrian ruins and artifacts in Syria.

Monitoring by satellite could reduce and document the extent of destruction, prepare reconstruction and provide evidence for international courts of justice, she added.

"We are very worried about Libya, being a divided country. We have a small office there and are working with the local governments and mayors. We are very concerned about the expansion of Isis (IS) and youth radicalization. We are worried about Somalia. This (the satellite program) is our response to extremism," Bokova said.

The agreement was signed Wednesday in Bonn, Germany.

Author: Ed Adamczyk | Source: UPI [July 02, 2015]

Flanked by River Haro on the one side and Margalla Hills on the other, Taxila is a vast serial site that includes a Mesolithic cave and the archaeological remains of four early colony sites. “It is one of the most important archaeological sites in Asia,” according to UNESCO.

With so much to show the world, Taxila is ignored on the tourist map largely because of the country’s security situation, lack of tourism promotion, and privation of facilities in the city.

From the famous Grand Trunk (GT) Road, a small and poorly metalled road leads to Taxila Museum and the archaeological sites. The picturesque lush green natural landscape has changed dramatically over the last 25 years.

Unplanned houses, hand carts, shops and vendors’ stalls are the modern hallmarks of the area, instead of its previous relaxing and enjoyable natural beauty. The rapid urbanisation of the area and the plunder of the sites has cost the sites dearly and yet nobody pays attention to it.

The results are obvious. The Global Heritage Fund has identified Taxila as one of 12 sites worldwide that are “On the Verge” of irreparable loss and damage. The fund’s 2010 report attributes this irreparable loss to insufficient management, development pressure, looting, and war and conflict as primary threats.

Moving along the dusty and crowded Grand Trunk (GT) Road from Islamabad to Taxila, the monument of Brigadier general John Nicholson, a famous military figure of the British Empire, greets a visitor. The monument is located on the Margalla Hills — the gateway to Taxila.

The sighting of Nicholson’s monument takes the visitor instantaneously to the days of British Colonial Raj. The time when teams of archaeologists were digging around the town of Taxila in search of the lost civilisations. The finding has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

“It’s the marvel Pakistan got from the British Colonial Raj and yet it has not properly promoted as a tourist destination,” said Javed Iqbal, an archaeologist. Taxila is one of the three top Pakistani archaeology sites including the ruins of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro — two of the main cities that comprise the Indus Valley Civilisation, he said.

Sir John Marshall, the director-general of the Archaeological Survey of India from 1902 to 1928, began the excavations at Taxila that continued for the next twenty years. In 1918, Marshall laid the foundation stone of the Taxila Museum to preserve the precious findings.

The museum is built in the middle of the archaeological site and has a rich collection of relics, artefacts, stupas, and stone and stucco sculptures from different Buddhist monasteries, Gandhara Art and the Kushana period. The Kingdom of Gandhara lasted from the Vedic period (1500-500 BC) as a centre of Graeco-Buddhism, Bactrian Zoroastrianism and Animism.

Ahmad Alamgir, another archaeologist and historian, who met me at the museum said that only one significant development had been carried out by the government of Pakistan in almost a century.

“Sir Marshall actually could not complete the original plan of the museum when he had to leave for England. After the creation of Pakistan, the government of Pakistan constructed the northern gallery of the museum in 1998 … and that’s it,” he said.

The museum has a number of galleries in which findings from the surrounding sites have been presented subject wise. There are lines of wall and table showcases in the galleries and a complete stupa, from the Buddhist monastery of Mohra Moradu, stands in the middle of the main hall of the museum.

A vast collection of stucco heads of Buddha showing different faces and styles is the main attraction for tourists. The big Buddha heads are typically Gandharan in style, according to the archaeologists.

City of Cut Stone

The historic town of Taxila, originally Takaśilā in Sanskrit  (meaning City of Cut Stone) is located around 35km from Islamabad just off the famous Grand Trunk Road. The city is still famous of its artisans, who keep their ancestors’ profession alive, by making stone sculptures, murals and panels.

They also produce flower pots, planters, fountains, garden ornaments, balusters, pillars and railings, and fire places. Taxila, according to historians, thrived from 518BC to 600AD. In 326BC Alexander the Great and his armies encountered charging elephants in battle against Hindu king Porus.

Before fighting the battle, Alexander marched through the city and was greeted by King Ambhi. In 300BC Taxila was conquered by the Mauryan Empire under Chandragupta Maurya that disintegrated the Bactrian Greeks, the successors of Alexander, in 190BC. Ashoka, the legendary king of India, ruled Taxila as governor under his father Bindusara’s rule. The city, which is a part of Rawalpindi district, is now a main industrial town of Pakistan with heavy machine factories and industrial complex, stoneware and pottery.

Author: Aftab Kazmi | Source: Gulf News [July 18, 2015]

The first phase of the project covers 18 sections of the "Great Wall of Qi" with a total length of 61 km. It will cost 208 million yuan (34 million U.S. dollars), according to Xie Zhixiu, head of the provincial cultural heritage administration.

Shandong will also launch projects this year to protect the natural environment and ancient military facilities along the Wall, said Xie.

Built between 770 BC and 476 BC in the ancient state of Qi, today's Shandong, the Great Wall of Qi started at a small village in what is now Changqing District of Jinan City, with passes, gates, castles and beacon towers along a total length of 641 km till it met the sea near Qingdao.

Due to natural erosion, construction, mining and land reclamation, the Great Wall of Qi is in a worsening condition.

As military defense projects, more than 20 emperors in ancient China ordered the building or renovation of walls and fortifications. The Great Wall of China was made a World Heritage Site in 1987.

Source: Xinhua [June 26, 2015]

Thassian marble, considered in antiquity to be one of the purest marbles, is being used in the restoration which aims to reproduce the theatre's original appearance.

To this end, sections of the koilon (the auditorium), the parodoi (the side entrances between the skene and the audience) and the skene are being redressed in the famous marble.

The restoration is being financed by a private quarrying company.

Source: ANA-MPA [June 20, 2015]

Scholars and curious visitors have spent more than a century trying to unravel those mysteries and more work needs to be done.

That's why nearly 30 top archaeologists from universities and organizations around the nation called on the U.S. Interior Department on Tuesday to protect the area surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park from oil and gas development.

In a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, they talked about the countless hours they've spent in the field, the dozens of books they've published about the Chaco society and their decades of collective experience studying its connection to modern Native American tribes in the Southwest. They call Chaco a distinct resource.

"Many of the features associated with this landscape — the communications and road systems that once linked the canyon to great house sites located as far away as southeast Utah and which are still being identified to this day — have been damaged by the construction of oil and gas roads, pipelines and well pads," the archaeologists said.

They're pushing for the agency to consider a master leasing plan that would take into account cultural resources beyond the boundaries of the national park. They're also looking for more coordination between federal land managers, tribes and archaeologists.

The Bureau of Land Management is revamping its resource management plan for the San Juan Basin and all new leasing within a 10-mile radius of Chaco park has been deferred until the plan is updated, likely in 2016.

Wally Drangmeister, a spokesman for the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, said the BLM's existing plan already takes into account cultural resources. He said there has been a push by environmentalists to tie Chaco to development in the Mancos shale more than 10 miles from the park.

Environmentalists have been calling for protections for the greater Chaco area, and Drangmeister said that expansive definition could put the whole San Juan Basin off limits.

The basin is one of the largest natural gas fields in the U.S. and has been in production for more than 60 years. More development is expected in some areas since technology is making it easier for energy companies to tap the region's oil resources.

Some archaeologists have theorized that Chaco's influence spread far and wide from its remote desert location. A World Heritage site, Chaco includes a series of great houses, or massive multistory stone buildings, some of which were oriented to solar and lunar directions and offered lines of sight between buildings to allow for communication.

Steve Lekson, a professor and curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, has spent years studying Chaco and its influence over the Southwest. He likened the process to learning how to play baseball after discovering home base and the pitcher's mound.

"You keep poking around and find more bases and the warning tracks and all that stuff. You need the whole picture to understand how the game is played," he said. "Of course, Chaco being a political system or major regional system is much more complicated than baseball. You need enough of the package intact so you can actually understand the structure of the thing."

Lekson and others said the hope that there's more to be discovered doesn't mean energy development should come to a halt.

"I don't think anybody is saying that, but we need to pay a lot of attention to how that's done and be cognizant of the larger issue," he said. "It shouldn't be a site-by-site thing."

The archaeologists' letter comes on the heels of a tour of the Chaco area by U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, D-New Mexico, and Interior Deputy Secretary Mike Connor. The two met with land managers and others after the tour.

Connor said there are Navajo allottees who want to develop their resources and other Native Americans who want to protect those resources.

"It's a balancing act throughout all of BLM's lands and I think Chaco is particularly unique," he said. "The more I learn about it, the more I was struck by the more we all have to learn."

Author: Susan Montoya Bryan | Source: The Associated Press [July 01, 2015]

When TOI visited the four villages — Rasoolpur, Patsal, Madanpura and Bandroli — where this ancient art is located, it found that almost 70% of the paintings had been destroyed, and only the efforts of a few persevering villagers had enabled the remaining specimens to somehow escape destruction. Dal Chand Dhuliya, an elderly resident of Madanpura, spoke for many villagers when he said, "We know that once these paintings are destroyed, they can't be recovered. We keep an eye on them at present, but for how long will they survive, and how long can we keep protecting them?"

The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) amazingly has not done much to protect these paintings. When probed on why the agency has not initiated any action on preserving this heritage, ASI superintending archaeologist Bhuvan Vikrama said, "We will try and save the remaining works of art and are working on a proposal. It will be sent to the headquarters for approval."

Over 70% of the cave paintings have disappeared due to illegal mining.

The remaining paintings, some still shining out in colours of maroon and ochre, show ancient men domesticating cattle as well as engaged in hunting. Some of them depict animals like elephant and bull. The best specimens, though, are at Patsal where there are two sites locally known as Sita ki Rasoi and Nai ki Gufa. Sita ki Rasoi is a natural cave situated at a height of 150 feet where ancient men probably lived. Inside it, there is a depiction of a character that looks like a bison. At Nai ki Gufa, deer and sambar can be seen in the paintings.

M K Pundhir, medieval archaeologist from the Centre of Advance Studies in History, Aligarh Muslim University, testifies to the antiquity of this art. "The paintings are definitely from the Mesolithic period as they depict animals of four legs with smaller size and linear decoration which is how they were portrayed at that time."

Meanwhile, an ASI official said that the caves were first discovered in 1967 in Rasoolpur at one site and later at adjoining places around 1976. When queried as to why they were not preserved by the archaeological body then, the official response was that it should have been done, but the agency's focus was more on the monuments of the area.

Author: Aditya Dev | Source: Times of India [June 08, 2015]

The Superintendent for Cultural Heritage responsible for the sites at Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabia said in a statement that the closure "highlights the critical situation...at Mt.
Vesuvius archaeological sites".

The 36 staff members at Herculaneum are divided between five shifts daily but that is inadequate for a site that covers an area of 4.5 hectares and requires six or seven staff per shift to supervise and protect the ancient site, officials said.

A sudden illness threw the schedule off and forced Monday's closure to the public, they added.

Herculaneum - like the more famous Pompeii - was destroyed by an eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD.

Both are UNESCO World Heritage sites and concerns about their protection and preservation have been increasing amid reports in recent years about cave-ins, natural disasters, and outright thefts of priceless archaeological relics.

Source: ANSA [July 06, 2015]

Rumkale and its vicinity, which straddles the boundary between the southeastern Turkish provinces of Gaziantep’s Nizip and Yavuzeli districts and Şanlıurfa’s Bilecik and Halfeti districts, is home to structures from the Urartu, Babylon, Sumerian, Graeco-Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman eras.

The Apostle John is said to have settled in Rumkale during the Roman era and reproduced copies of the Bible.

The area was occupied by various Byzantine and Armenian warlords during the Middle Ages. The castle served as the seat of an Armenian patriarch in the 12th century.

From 1203 to 1293, it was the residence of the supreme head (Catholicos) of the reunified Armenian Church. In 1293, it was captured by the Mamluks of Egypt, following a protracted siege.

Monastery Restoration

Restoration work is currently continuing in the Barşavma Monastery, which was built in the 13th century and is located in the north side of the castle.

Yavuzeli District governor Ömer Faruk Güngen said Rumkale was a hidden haven and shining star in the southeastern Anatolian region.

Speaking of its importance in nature and faith tourism, Güngen said, “We need to offer Rumkale to tourists. People should know about the ruins and natural beauties here.”

He said facilities would be established in the area for tourists to spend more time in the region, adding, “Our projects will also employ people living here. Our goal is to increase the contribution of Rumkale to the Turkish economy. This place is a hidden haven that people cannot come and see. It has a rich history. More artifacts are found as excavations deepen. Rumkale’s promotion is important to us.”

The head of the excavations, Bora Cem Sevencan, said Rumkale also had importance in terms of art history and a common heritage of humanity. “The area will be a junction point for faith tourism when the work is done,” he said.

Source: Hurriyet Daily News [April 24, 2015]

Car factory in Paris

AREP builds on city's historic legacy with redevelopment of former car factory in Paris. AREP has redeveloped the former Panhard car factory in Porte d'Ivry, Paris, applying exciting design choices to work with the city's existing heritage.

The Panhard and Levassor workshops were partially demolished in 1967 to create the Olympiades district. They are the last remnants of a thriving industrial past, after the demolition of all the automobile plants in Paris: the Renault facilities on Ile Séguin, Citroën in Javel and part of the Panhard factory at Porte d'Ivry.

Between 2007 and 2013, AREP extended and entirely refurbished the building to create 21,000 sq m of office space as well as public facilities (a nursery and the premises of a non-profit organisation running a day centre for the homeless). The firm worked with architects Jean-Marie Duthilleul and Etienne Tricaud and with Benoît Ferré and Serge Caillaud (Phase 1 and Building Work Management).

In an environment dominated by the verticality of high-rise residential blocks, the project keeps the former factory alive, sustains its horizontality and unique architectural style and relies on the ornamental features of the existing façades: materials, dominant chromatic palette and contour line.

The brick façade provides a mineral base extending the current façades while the openings are in line with the rhythm of the original building. Each, partially or entirely, new façade forms a coherent whole with the reinforced mineral angles providing the framework for a more open sequence in the centre.

Two large industrial-style statuesque boxes loom above the roof-top mouldings, clad in a double semi-transparent layer of glass and perforated coppery metal and echoing the tiles on the saw tooth roofs. These are intended as a metaphor of the former industrial features.

The adjacent cut of the Petite Ceinture (an abandoned railway line) was decked over to create a garden. Planted with ground covering plants, shrubs and trees, the garden slopes down from Rue Regnault to the new garden level, reflecting the characteristic bucolic image of the embankments of the Petite Ceinture, where vegetation takes over any available space.

The new extension houses a nursery in its north-east corner and a day centre for the homeless in its north-west corner, both situated on the garden and ground-floor levels.

The work spaces inside the building are designed to facilitate contact, interaction, formal and informal relations. This result is achieved through clearly designed spaces (atrium and vertical access flows), quality of the working environment (natural light, acoustics and ergonomics) and green spaces.

VIA «Redevelopment of the Car Factory In Porte d'Ivry [France, Paris]»

In an area of Colombia so vast and remote that contact has still not been made with some tribes thought to live there, Mike Slee used a helicopter to film hundreds of paintings depicting hunters and animals believed to have been created thousands of years ago. He said: “We had crews all over the place and helicopters filming all over Colombia. As a photographer, Francisco Forero Bonell discovered and took the pictures for my movie.”

The extraordinary art includes images of jaguar, crocodiles and deer. They are painted in red, on vertical rock faces in Chiribiquete national park, a 12,000 square kilometre Unesco world heritage site that is largely unexplored. There are also paintings of warriors or hunters dancing or celebrating. “It is the land that time forgot,” Slee told the Observer.

There had previously been only vague reports of rock art in the area, which is known as Cerro Campana, he said: “There’s no information, maps or communication. It’s such a massive central part of Colombia.” Though some paintings had previously been found and photographed elsewhere in Chiribiquete, this Cerro Campana art has never been filmed or photographed, Slee said: “It was an absolutely stunning moment to be able to get the footage.”

Slee used a helicopter to gain access to the area, as the terrain is impenetrable – thick vegetation, forested rock peaks and valleys, sheer cliffs and giant rock towers soaring through a rainforest canopy.

Professor Fernando Urbina, a rock art specialist from the National University of Colombia, was struck by the “magnificent naturalism” of the depictions of deer when shown the photographs.

“They reveal the hand of a master of painting,” he said, adding that the paintings could be up to 20,000 years old. He was particularly interested in a human figure in a seated position whose arms appear to be folded over his shoulders, a ritual position in Amazonian cultures. “A seated man has special significance as the sage of the tribe,” he said.

The art may have been painted by the Karijona tribe, a few of whose members still live in the region. The seated position might suggest a prisoner or slave, Urbina said.Jean Clottes, a French prehistorian, and author of Cave Art – a book covering key sites such as Lascaux in France – described the images as exciting and well-preserved, but said it would be hard to determine their age because radiocarbon dating could not be used, as they were painted with mineral-based materials derived from iron oxide rather than the charcoal used in European rock art.

The species depicted are thought to include capybaras, snakes and anteaters. Slee described the art as a wildlife chapel. “The peoples who once lived here have left in pictures testimony of their awe and respect for the wild,” he said. “When I saw the images, I honestly felt an affinity with the artists. They were attempting to capture the power, grace, spirit and essence of the animal in pictures. Perhaps it was to make the hunt better next day, but there is clearly careful observation in their art. It’s what contemporary photographers, painters, film-makers set out to do when they create a wildlife project.”

Slee made his name making natural history films and directed the movie Bugs! 3D, about two rainforest insects, narrated by Judi Dench. In 2012, the Observer reported that his Flight of the Butterflies 3D had captured butterflies in unprecedented detail, moving scientists to tears at an early screening. Over the past three years, Slee has been exploring Colombia to make Colombia: Wild Magic, which will be in cinemas next year. Through spectacular footage, it portrays “a majestic tropical wilderness” – but one he said was threatened by humans who are “taking more than they are giving”. With swooping aerial footage and detailed close-ups, it reveals a landscape of canyons and caves, lakes and lagoons, rivers and rock masses with “the largest varieties of living things on the planet”, including unique species of hummingbird and endangered jaguar.

Drawing on the expertise of a dozen scientific advisers, the film warns of threats from the world’s “craving” for natural resources such as gold and emeralds. Slee said: “We’ve got illegal gold-mining polluting the rivers, we’re overfishing the seas, the habitat destruction is massive. We’re taking out the rainforest, we’re losing species every week. We have the most beautiful country on Earth and we are in danger of destroying it. There are places that no Colombian has been. It’s mainly because, when you think of Colombia, you think of kidnapping and drugs.”

Bonell, a Colombian conservationist and photographer, was inspired to become executive producer of the film, describing the region as “one of the few areas on our planet that still remains unspoiled and unexplored”.

The film has been produced by British company Off The Fence, and will be distributed free in schools in Colombia, as well as cinemas, “spreading the word about what their country has and the need to protect it”, Slee said. Slee hopes to return for another large-scale expedition focusing on the rock art. “We’ve probably only scratched the surface,” he said. “There are believed to be many hundreds of these cave paintings dotted throughout that central region.”

Author: Dalya Alberge | Source: The Guardian/Observer [June 24, 2015]

"The fact of the matter is that physical weathering, deterioration and damage to marble and other architectural stones present a serious problem for the preservation of sculptures, monuments and buildings," said Luzin.

David: A sculpture made from Carrara marble

Before its relocation in Galleria dell'Accademia, David, the "Giant", was  symbolically displayed in the political heart of Renaissance Florence, the Piazza della Signoria. Over a period of almost three centuries, the statue was exposed to the action of weather, historical events and inappropriate restoration works. These coexisting factors prevented the appropriate preservation of a masterpiece that, already at the time of its creation, was regarded as challenging by many artists—due to the presence of taroli, imperfections of the marble.

Today David is in a highly stable condition but still presents a contemporary scientific challenge from a conservation point of view. Researchers are monitoring marble cracking of the 4.3 metre David with a system of sensors that record vibrations, rotations and environmental conditions. [1] Conservationists monitor the sculpture because it is thought that even small mechanical impacts and small temperature variations are detrimental to marble.

Geologically marble is formed by the alteration (metamorphism) of limestone under high temperature and high pressure. The metamorphic process causes a complete recrystallization of the original rock into an interlocking mosaic of calcite and/or dolomite crystals with very specific mechanical behaviour.

Carrara marble, the stone used by Michaelangelo in sculpting David, was  one of the most popular types of marble in the world because of its beauty and high lustre. For centuries it was quarried from the Apuan Alps in Tuscan Italy.

The popularity of Carrara marble was due in part to the wide range of varieties available (statuary, flowered, veined, brecciated, bardiglio, etc.), to the constancy of its quality, scarcity of defects, large size of single blocks that could be extracted, excellent physical and mechanical characteristics, and long-lasting strength and beauty." [2]        

However the suitability of marble from the Carrara area of Italy for buildings and artworks has been questioned because of 'spectacular bowing behaviour' of marble slabs on numerous modern buildings including the Amoco building in Chicago and the Grand Arche de la Defense in Paris.

A study of Carrara marble by a group of investigators led by Luzin have confirmed that microstresses caused by temperature variation and the thermo-mechanical properties of the marble itself help explain the deterioration. Co-investigators are Dimitry Nikolayev of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Moscow and Siegfried Siegesmund of theUniversity of Göttingen in Germany.

The investigators were interested in the different environmental conditions that influence marble deterioration and had to reproduce factors known to be important to the process of deterioration. Temperature effects were among those known to cause mechanical stress.

Luzin and collaborators used non-destructive neutron diffraction to confirm that thermally-induced microstress from a single thermal exposure can cause microcracking in the marble and therefore be responsible for weathering and deterioration of the marble [3].

"Neutron diffraction is a useful tool and a non-destructive method to investigate the texture, phase composition and spatial and orientation dependence of strain in a bulk marble sample," explained Luzin.

Although the commercial use of statue-grade Carrara marble is no longer allowed, an exception is made for restoration works and scientific research. Freshly cut marble from a quarry in Carrara, Italy was used for the testing.

"Although not easy, stress measurements in geological materials, such as marble are feasible and provide valuable characterisation," said Luzin.

He explained that the challenges are related to the need to measure two phases with sufficient accuracy. It is necessary to use a large gauge volume because of the coarse grain microstructure and longer measurement time in order to capture very delicate effects of microstress in calcite and dolomite—which are also very weak neutron scatterers.

The neutron high resolution powder diffractomter, Echidna, determined the amount of each phase in two cube samples of marble. In one sample, the dolomite comprised a volume fraction of 28 per cent  and in the other it was 18 per cent, which is not surprising given the highly visible non-uniform distribution of dolomite in the marble.

The Kowari diffractometer was used to produce pole figures, graphical representations that   capture the preferred crystallographic orientation (texture) of the calcite and dolomite. "A weak crystallographic texture in both phases was confirmed in the neutron diffraction experiment," said Luzin.

The stress experiments were carried out using the Kowari diffractometer in a specially designed sample environment unit in order to control temperature. "We took measurements of the calcite and dolomite phases at room temperature and at 80° C."

Using a technique to measure the stiffness of an elastic material, the researchers were able to accurately measure the accumulated damage after a thermal exposure that could be unambiguously attributed to microcracking.

"Evidently, a significant change in microstress caused micro-cracking in the marble sample due to temperature changes," said Luzin.

Although exaggerated temperature might not be relevant to real daily and seasonal temperature variation, smaller, more numerous natural temperature variations during long periods of time might result in even greater accumulated damage. There are historical examples of sculpture which deteriorated into a pulverised state after a century of exposure to temperature variation.

"We have a responsibility to try and preserve great works of art and architecture with non-destructive techniques and nuclear technologies give us the means to do this. Hopefully David and other important monuments can be preserved in the centuries to come," said Luzin.

References

[1] Giovanni Pascale, Filippo Bastianini, Roberto Carli, "Monitoring Marble cracking in the David by Michaelangelo Proc. Art'11, 10th Int. Conf. on Non-Destructive Investigations and microanalysis for the diagnostics and conservation of cultural and environmental heritage, Florence, April 13th-15th, 2011, NDT44

[2] Stephano Merlino Paolo Orlandi "Carraraite and zaccagnaite, two new minerals from the Carrara marble quarries: their chemical compositions, physical properties, and structural features" American Mineralogist, Volume 86, pages 1293–1301

[3] 310.4028/www.scientific.net/MSF.777.148. Luzin, V; Nikolayev, D and Siegesmund, S, Temperature Induced Internal Stress in Carrara Marble, Mater. Sci. Forum 777, 148-154 (2014)

Source: Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) [June 22, 2015]