UNESCO: UNESCO and WMF join Forces to inventory the Jewish Heritage Worldwide. “UNESCO and World Monuments Fund (WMF) will establish a partnership aimed at accelerating the documentation of Jewish cultural heritage worldwide and better protecting these sites. The partnership will initially run for five years. It will benefit from an initial investment of $1 million USD and will be open to external funding.”
Meredith College: New Historical Marker to Recognize Work of Human Computers. “An event celebrating a new historical marker in downtown Raleigh commemorating the women who worked as ‘human computers’ for the U.S. space program and military will be held on Friday, Sept. 22, 2023, at 10:30 a.m. at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. Meredith College alumnae are among the women whose work is recognized with this new marker.”
Flickr Blog: Preserving Public Lands: Flickr Joins the Mobilizing for Monuments Campaign. “At Flickr, we firmly believe in the power of collaboration to bring about positive change. That’s why we are thrilled to support the Mobilizing for Monuments initiative, an ambitious project committed to preserving our nation’s invaluable natural and cultural heritage for future generations.”
Times-Union: Time capsule containing historic documents found in base of Schuyler statue. “City workers uncovered a copper-colored box within the statue’s circular base matching descriptions of a time capsule from news articles when the statue was first put in place in 1925, David Galin, the mayor’s chief of staff, said in an email Saturday afternoon.”
University of York: World-famous Avebury site to be brought to life online for first time. “Avebury comprises one of the UK’s largest Henge monuments, containing the world’s largest stone circle at almost 350m in diameter, with avenues of paired standing stones… The four-year project will analyse, expand, digitise, and share Avebury’s unique multimedia archive, detailing its Neolithic origins, and a history that ranges from a medieval hamlet to a modern site of heritage, tourism, creativity, and spirituality.”
Wanted in Rome: Italy’s fascist landmarks mapped in new website. “An online map charting the existing monuments, buildings and memorials honouring fascism in Italy was launched on Tuesday by the Istituto Ferruccio Parri, an historical research institute in Milan. The luoghi del fascismo website is hailed as Italy’s first nationwide project to document the surviving traces of Benito Mussolini’s regime and assess how the memory of fascism has been preserved and even revived in recent decades.”
The Mainichi: Nara researchers turn to crowdfunding to create old monument deciphering app. “Researchers here are collecting money via crowdfunding to develop a smartphone app that lets anyone decipher writing on old stone monuments. The crowdfunding initiative launched by the Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties and other bodies on Oct. 5 has already collected its initial goal of 3.8 million yen (roughly $25,000) and is now aiming for 5 million yen ($33,000).”
CNET: Google Maps Now Provides Aerial Views of Nearly 100 World Landmarks. “As part of its immersive view experience, Google Maps unveiled aerial views of nearly 100 global landmarks, the company announced Wednesday. Through the new photorealistic images, you can explore famous monuments in cities across the world such as Barcelona, London, New York and Tokyo.”
Washington Post: Goodbye, Pushkin. Ukrainians target Russian street names, monuments.. “The onset of war has hastened Ukraine’s efforts to remove the names of famous Russian and Soviet figures from metro stations, streets and landmarks. There’s even an app. The only reason more Russian statues haven’t been toppled lately, [Serhii] Sternenko said, is that Ukrainians have been too busy fighting a war.”
Google Blog: Step into the Meroë pyramids with Google. “Today, you can explore these stunning pyramids, which are a UNESCO World Heritage site, on Google Arts & Culture. Over 200 pyramids were constructed in Meroë, the third and final capital of the Kushite Kingdom, an ancient African civilization that ruled the lands of Nubia for over 3000 years. Now you can take a virtual walk through the Pyramids of Meroë and explore the inscriptions using Street View’s panoramic imagery.”
Reuters: World heritage at risk amid Ukraine war, UNESCO says. “Dozens of valuable churches, historical sites and museums have been damaged by the war in Ukraine, the United Nations’ cultural agency said on Friday, adding that it was particularly worried about the northern city of Chernihiv…. UNESCO’s first, preliminary list of totally or partially damaged sites featured 29 religious sites, 16 historical buildings, four museums and four monuments, it said.”
TIME: Ukrainian Museums Are Racing to Save Artifacts That Tell the Country’s Story. “They’ve done everything from evacuating works of art over the border to hiding objects in safe storage. Cities are trying to safeguard monuments and statues by surrounding them with sandbags and covering statues with fireproof material to protect them from bombing and shelling.”
New-to-me, from University of North Carolina: A monumental visual history. “Commemorative Landscapes of North Carolina, or CommLand, a partnership with University Libraries, now features the stories of over 1,000 monuments across the state in all 100 counties. It is the largest and most extensive curated site devoted to a single state’s historical monuments and memorials.”
9to5 Google: Google Search adds 3D monuments, including Big Ben, Eiffel Tower, Parthenon, & Tokyo Skytree. “Google started showing 3D animals in Search last year but has since expanded to a whole host of AR objects covering space, science, and athletes. The latest expansion sees Google Search add 3D monuments.”
From Heise Online and machine-translated from German: Endangered EU monuments should be digitized quickly. “The EU Commission is pushing for a ‘common European data space for cultural heritage’ to be set up. Endangered monuments and archaeological sites are to be digitized in 3D by 2030. By then, the member states should have converted half of their ‘most physically visited’ cultural facilities into a digital format.”
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