Stop Press

A compilation of media articles on heritage topics. Obviously, these all reflect the viewpoints of the authors.

30 January

• Ireland needs to ratify Unesco treaty on underwater heritage
  Irish Times, Ireland
  The State’s failure to ratify a UN treaty could lead to the plundering of our underwater cultural heritage.

• Kathmandu architect chronicles dying culture
  Times of Oman
  It is said that the medieval era never really ended in Nepal, its historic towns and architectural jewels blessed by an unbroken continuity of life and ritual that links the present with the past.

27 January

• Hermitage sets up mini-museum in Madrid's Prado
  CNN, United States
  They are two of Europe's premier art destinations, filled with treasures amassed over centuries.

• Louvre Museum to hold exhibition in Japan's disaster-stricken prefectures
  Mainichi Daily News, Japan
  France's Louvre Museum will launch a touring exhibition in the three prefectures most severely affected by the March 11, 2011 disasters, museum officials said at a press conference in Tokyo on Jan. 26.

• Czech archaeologists discover long-lost temple in Sudan
  Prague Daily Monitor, Czech Republic
  Czech archaeologists have found a long lost temple from the Meroe period near the town of Vad Bon Naga in Sudan, Pavel Onderka, from Prague's Naprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures, told journalists yesterday.

25 January

• New museums in Libya reflect war experience
  Washington Post, United States
  Eight months after revolutionaries took control of Misurata, a strategic and bloody battlefield in Libya’s uprising against former leader Moammar Gaddafi, people are going about their lives once more.

24 January

• Faculty members use physics to expose art forgery
  The Observer, United Kingdom
  The worlds of science and art are headed on a collision course, and master forgers are forewarned: Science will catch them red-handed.

23 January

• UNESCO urges maritime restrictions for World Heritage Sites in Italy
  UN News Centre
  The United Nations agency tasked with safeguarding the world’s cultural heritage called on Italy today to restrict maritime access to its most culturally and ecologically sensitive areas, including the lagoon city of Venice.

• Houses of Parliament could be sold because building is sinking
  The Telegraph, United Kingdom
  Radical proposals are being considered as to how to tackle the long-term problem of the Palace of Westminster’s subsidence, which has already caused Big Ben’s clock tower to lean 18ins from the vertical.

• Heritage: why we all have a part to play
  The Guardian, United Kingdom
  History relates the role of heritage in our economic regeneration, says Fiona Reynolds – now government must recognise it too

• Spain's Prado museum takes steps to fight budget cuts
  Reuters
  Madrid's Prado Museum has started opening seven days a week and will lengthen its highly visited special exhibitions to offset the pain of government cutbacks.

• Vingt têtes maories restituées à la Nouvelle-Zélande par les musées français
  France TV
  Vingt têtes maories conservées dans les musées français ont été rassemblées à la mi-décembre au musée du quai Branly, à Paris. Lundi 23 janvier, elles ont été restituées à la Nouvelle-Zélande.

• France returns 20 Maori heads to New Zealand in hopes of properly respecting the dead
  Washington Post, United States
  Preparing the biggest homecoming yet of its kind, authorities in New Zealand on Monday received 20 ancestral heads of Maori ethnic people once held in several French museums as a cultural curiosity.

19 January

• Balkans targeted in hunt for stolen art
  The Art Newspaper
  This is a prime opportunity for art recovery experts to retrieve works.

• The Happy Museum: preserving our heritage and nurturing new growth
  The Guardian, United Kingdom
  Tony Butler reports back on the Happy Museum symposium and the six organisations exploring new models of wellbeing

• Study suggests ancient Peruvians 'ate popcorn'
  BBC, United Kingdom
  A new study suggests that people living along the coast of northern Peru were eating popcorn 1,000 years earlier than previously thought.

17 January

• Ancient Greek sites could soon be available for rent
  AFP, France
  In a move bound to leave many Greeks and scholars aghast, Greece's culture ministry said Tuesday it will open up some of the debt-stricken country's most-cherished archaeological sites to advertising firms and other ventures.

• Afghan calligrapher creates world's largest Koran
  Chicago Tribune, United States
  An Afghan calligrapher has worked for five years to create the world's biggest Koran, a bid to show the world that Afghanistan's rich cultural heritage and traditions have been damaged but not destroyed by 30 years of war.

16 January

• Archaeologists discover tomb of female singer in Valley of the Kings
  The Independent, United Kingdom
  Archaeologists from Egypt and Switzerland have unearthed the 1,100-year-old tomb of a female singer in the Valley of the Kings.

• Lost Charles Darwin fossils rediscovered in cabinet
  BBC, United Kingdom
  A "treasure trove" of fossils - including some collected by Charles Darwin - has been re-discovered in an old cabinet.

• Martin Luther King digital archive opens to public
  BBC, United Kingdom
  The King Center has published 200,000 personal documents belonging to Martin Luther King Jr, as the US marks the civil rights leader's birthday.

15 January

• 'Get people into your museums'
  The Times of India
  Indian museums badly need overhauling and who better than the director of British Museum, Neil MacGregor, to help do it.

• Yemen failing to protect historic buildings in Sanaa
  The National, United Arab Emirates
  The Old City of Sanaa is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, but its spectacular centuries-old rammed earth and burnt brick buildings are disappearing.

14 January

• Submarine found 70 years after sinking
  The News, United Kingdom
  THE wreckage of a Second World War submarine has been discovered in the depths of the Mediterranean.

13 January

• Paris museum enraged after lingerie models prance through gallery in bras and panties for video ad
  The Telegraph, United Kingdom
  A 2,000-year-old Roman cavalry helmet has shed new light on the conquest of Britain after experts pieced it back together 10 years since its discovery in an Iron Age shrine.

12 January

• Authorities in bid to save derelict Van Gogh house
  The Art Newspaper
  The house where Van Gogh lodged in the Borinage, where he was an evangelist among the coalminers, is falling down.

• IDB grants Ecuador US$37.8M loan to restore cultural heritage
  Guyana Times
  Ecuador will carry out a broad programme to protect and restore its cultural heritage with the help of a loan for US$37.8 million from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

• This mural should be a living work
  The Art Newspaper
  Arts Victoria is applying to carry out conservation work on Keith Haring’s last surviving large-scale mural in Australia. This has prompted protest from many who call for the mural to be repainted in accordance with the late artist’s wishes, rather than being preserved in its current state.

10 January

• Défilé sauvage : Orsay veut porter plainte contre Etam
  Le Figaro, France
  Le Musée national compte porter plainte contre la marque de lingerie qui a envoyé ses mannequins se déshabiller entre ses murs.

• Roman cavalry helmet found in Iron Age shrine may prove Britons fought with legions
  The Telegraph, United Kingdom
  A 2,000-year-old Roman cavalry helmet has shed new light on the conquest of Britain after experts pieced it back together 10 years since its discovery in an Iron Age shrine.

• Guggenheim Foundation proposes museum in Helsinki
  Associated Press
  The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation on Tuesday proposed building a museum in the Finnish capital after a yearlong feasibility study.

9 January

• Redevelopment akin to rewriting history
  China.org.cn
  The announcement on Dec. 29 by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) that around 44,000 of China's 766,722 registered heritage sites had disappeared reflects the complex challenge of balancing economic development with cultural preservation.

• Il n'y a pas que le volcan qui menace le site
  Le Monde, France
  Amoureuse de Pompéi - pour y avoir travaillé quatre ans - Patrizia Nitti, directrice artistique du Musée Maillol, a décidé de braquer les projecteurs sur la petite ville antique, classée sur la liste du Patrimoine mondial de l'Unesco et dont les vestiges sont menacés, pour aiguiser "l'intérêt du public".

• To Preserve History on the Moon, Visitors Are Asked to Tread Lightly
  New York Times, United States
  Archaeologists and historians worry that the next generation of people visiting the moon might carelessly obliterate the site of one of humanity’s greatest accomplishments.

• Picasso stolen from Athens' National Gallery
  AFP, France
  A Pablo Picasso painting gifted to Greece by the Spanish-born master was stolen from Athens' National Gallery early Monday with two other important artworks, prompting scorn from the Greek police minister.

• Using Modern Tools to Reconstruct Ancient Life
  New York Times, United States
  To the naked eye, the white, powdery substance appeared to be plaster. That’s what the professional and volunteer archaeologists at a dig in Israel concluded.

8 January

• Titanic auction not popular at Maritime Museum
  Herald News, Canada
  The sale of more than 5,000 artifacts salvaged from the world’s most famous shipwreck is causing concerns for a local museum official.

7 January

• Ancient temple restored 107 years after quake
  Gulf News, United Arab Emirates
  A 400-year-old Hindu temple in Himachal Pradesh that had been partly damaged more than a century ago in a devastating earthquake has been reconstructed in its original style and will be open to the public later this month

6 January

• What Does Unesco Recognition Mean, Exactly?
  New York Times , United States
  World Heritage is big business, bringing hordes of tourists to poor countries that can use the jobs and the cash.

• Plans to restore crumbling Colosseum cause rumblings in Rome
  CNN, United States
  Plans to restore Rome's nearly 2,000-year-old Colosseum are causing rumblings among heritage workers and restorers, compounded by reports in December that small amounts of powdery rock had fallen off the monument.

• Taiwan works to restore architectural treasures
  BBC, United Kingdom
  When visitors arrive in Taiwan, many think the buildings look ugly - some stained by the weather and in need of painting, others run-down high-rises.

5 January

• Aspiring artist "breaks into" museum, displays painting
  CBS News, United States
  Polish art student Andrzej Sobiepan didn't want to wait decades for his work to appear in museums. So he took matters into his own hands, secretly hanging one of his paintings in a major gallery.

• Bosnia’s National Museum, facing closure due to unpaid bills, gets a reprieve
  Washington Post, United States
  A regional government is providing emergency funding to Bosnia’s National Museum to save the 125-year-old institution from being forced to close due to unpaid utility bills.

4 January

• On shaky ground?
  The Art Newspaper
  The ever present threat of earthquakes to Italy's cultural heritage is the target of an initiative by Arcus, the commercial arm of the ministry of culture, set up by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

• Italy allows Unesco into Pompeii
  The Art Newspaper
  A Unesco report has identified serious problems with the World Heritage Site, including structural damage to buildings, vandalism and a lack of qualified staff.

• Underwater museums set to attract tourists
  Daily Nation, Kenya
  Underwater museums could be the new way to attract tourists and preserve cultural heritage if a study on shipwrecks is successful.

• More Artefacts Call For More Conservators
  Bernama, Malaysia
  The country is abundant with valuable artefacts of historical value that need to be preserved. The responsibility is held by a museum conservator. However, conservators are a rare breed in Malaysia.

• Protecting Libya’s heritage
  NATO Press release
  Libya boasts a rich cultural heritage; Palaeolithic rock paintings, Greek and Roman ruins and ancient desert oases. These historic treasures, including six UNESCO World Heritage sites, have suffered years of neglect and most recently the perils of conflict.

• Rare painting of voyage to Canadian Arctic returns home
  CTV News, Canada
  A delicate watercolour showing a group of British sailors rowing over the reflection of a cathedral-like Arctic iceberg has returned to Canada nearly 200 years after it was painted.

• Dispatches from UCL Qatar
  The Guardian, United Kingdom
  Doha, Qatar: UCL expects to attract new students to its overseas campus by offering courses that no other university in the Gulf region offers.

• After eight centuries of isolated slumber, Cambodia's "second Angkor" stirs to life
  Art Daily
  It's still entwined in mystery and jungle vines, but one of Cambodia's grandest monuments is slowly awakening after eight centuries of isolated slumber, having attracted a crack archaeological team and a trickle of tourists.

3 January

• Leonardo Painting’s Restoration Bitterly Divides Art Experts
  New York Times, United States
  Leonardo da Vinci’s “Virgin and Child With Saint Anne” does not enjoy the same star status as his Mona Lisa. But for the Louvre, it is an equally treasured masterpiece.

• New year, new approach to wellbeing?
  The Guardian, United Kingdom
  Why have arts and heritage been left out of the government's consultation on national wellbeing, asks John Holden

• Records de fréquentation au Louvre et au Centre Pompidou
  Le Figaro, France
  Le public afflue de partout, de plus en plus jeune et essentiellement intéressé par les valeurs sûres.

1 January

• Japan prepares to nominate more sites for registration on global list
  Japan Times
  Japan is seeking to place an increasing number of natural and cultural sites on UNESCO's World Heritage list, which already has 16 properties from the nation.

updated on: 1 February, 2012