15 Must-See Endangered Cultural Treasures
Some of the world's most precious historic and artistic sites can be visited today-but might be gone tomorrow

Smithsonian spotlights 15 must-see endangered cultural sites, ranging from 20,000-year-old rock carvings in Australia to 20th-century Art Deco buildings along U.S. Route 66. Each testifies to our urge to build and create; each reminds us of how much we stand to lose.

	Endangered Site: Chan Chan, Peru Once the capital of an empire, Chan Chan was the largest adobe city on earth. Courtesy of Flickr user Michel Gutierrez

Chan Chan, Peru
By Bruce Hathaway
About 600 years ago, this city on the Pacific coast was the largest city in the Americas

During its heyday, about 600 years ago, Chan Chan, in northern Peru, was the largest city in the Americas and the largest adobe city on earth. Ten thousand structures, some with walls 30 feet high, were woven amid a maze of passageways and streets. Palaces and temples were decorated with elaborate friezes, some of which were hundreds of feet long. Chan Chan was fabulously wealthy, although it perennially lacked one precious resource: water. Today, however, Chan Chan is threatened by too much water, as torrential rains gradually wash away the nine-square-mile ancient city.

Located near the Pacific coast city of Trujillo, Chan Chan was the capital of the Chimú civilization, which lasted from A.D. 850 to around 1470. The adobe metropolis was the seat of power for an empire that stretched 600 miles from just south of Ecuador down to central Peru. By the 15th century, as many as 60,000 people lived in Chan Chan—mostly workers who served an all-powerful monarch, and privileged classes of highly skilled craftsmen and priests. The Chimú followed a strict hierarchy based on a belief that all men were not created equal. According to Chimú myth, the sun populated the world by creating three eggs: gold for the ruling elite, silver for their wives and copper for everybody else.

The city was established in one of the world's bleakest coastal deserts, where the average annual rainfall was less than a tenth of an inch. Still, Chan Chan's fields and gardens flourished, thanks to a sophisticated network of irrigation canals and wells. When a drought, coupled with movements in the earth's crust, apparently caused the underground water table to drop sometime around the year 1000, Chimú rulers devised a bold plan to divert water through a canal from the Chicama River 50 miles to the north.

The Chimú civilization was the "first true engineering society in the New World," says hydraulic engineer Charles Ortloff, who is based in the anthropology department of the University of Chicago. He points out that Chimú engineering methods were unknown in Europe and North America until the late 19th century. Although the Chimú had no written language for recording measurements or drafting detailed blueprints, they were somehow able to carefully survey and build their massive canal through difficult foothill terrain between two valleys. Ortloff believes the canal builders must have been thwarted by the shifting earth. Around 1300, they apparently gave up on the project altogether.

While erratic water supplies created myriad challenges for agriculture, the Chimú could always count on the bounty of the sea. The Humboldt Current off Peru pushes nutrient-rich water up to the ocean's surface and gives rise to one of the world's richest marine biomasses, says Joanne Pillsbury, director of pre-Columbian studies at Washington, D.C.'s Dumbarton Oaks, a research institute of Harvard University. "The Chimú saw food as the tangible love their gods gave them," Ortloff says. Indeed, the most common images on Chan Chan's friezes are a cornucopia of fish, crustaceans and mollusks, with flocks of seabirds soaring overhead.

Chan Chan's days of glory came to an end around 1470, when the Inca conquered the city, broke up the Chimú Empire and brought many of Chan Chan's craftsmen to their own capital, Cuzco, 600 miles to the southeast. By the time Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro arrived around 1532, the city had been largely abandoned, though reports from the expedition described walls and other architectural features adorned with precious metals. (One of the conqueror's kinsmen, Pedro Pizarro, found a doorway covered in silver that might well have been worth more than $2 million today.) Chan Chan was pillaged as the Spaniards formed mining companies to extract every trace of gold and silver from the city.

Chan Chan was left to the mercy of the weather. "The Chimú were a highly organized civilization" and any water damage to the adobe-brick structures of Chan Chan "could be repaired immediately," says Claudia Riess, a German native who now works as a guide to archaeological sites in northern Peru. Most of the damage to Chan Chan during the Chimú reign was caused by El Niño storms, which occurred every 25 to 50 years.

Now they occur more frequently. Riess believes that climate change is a primary cause of the increasing rainfall—and she's not alone. A 2007 report published by Unesco describes the erosion of Chan Chan as "rapid and seemingly unstoppable" and concludes "global warming is likely to lead to greater extremes of drying and heavy rainfall." Peru's National Institute of Culture is supporting efforts to preserve the site. Tentlike protective structures are being erected in various parts of the city. Some friezes are being hardened with a solution of distilled water and cactus juice, while others have been photographed, then covered to protect them. Panels with pictures of the friezes allow visitors to see what the covered artwork looks like.

Riess believes the best solution for Chan Chan would be a roof that stretches over the entire area and a fence to surround the city. But she acknowledges that both are impractical, given the ancient capital's sheer size. Meanwhile, the rains continue, and Chan Chan slowly dissolves from brick into mud.

	Endangered Site: The City of Hasankeyf, Turkey Among the site's most remarkable buildings is a 15th-century cylindrical tomb. Historian Zeynep Ahunbay says at least one-third of the old city has yet to be excavated. by: Dennis Cox / Alamy

The City of Hasankeyf, Turkey
By Diane M. Bolz
A new hydroelectric dam threatens the ancient city, home to thousands of human-made caves

The waters of the Tigris River gave rise to the first settlements of the Fertile Crescent in Anatolia and Mesopotamia—the cradle of civilization. The ancient city of Hasankeyf, built on and around the banks of the river in southeastern Turkey, may be one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the world, spanning some 10,000 years. Hasankeyf and its surrounding limestone cliffs are home to thousands of human-made caves, 300 medieval monuments and a unique canyon ecosystem—all combining to create a beguiling open-air museum.

But the city, along with the archaeological artifacts still buried beneath it, is slated to become a sunken treasure. Despite widespread protests from local authorities, archaeologists, architects, preservationists and environmental groups, the massive hydroelectric Ilisu Dam is expected to be completed in 2013. The reservoir created by the dam will inundate the site's caves and flood most of its structures.

More than 20 cultures have left their mark at Hasankeyf. The first settlers probably lived along the Tigris in caves carved into the rock cliffs. (The ancient Assyrian name for the place was Castrum Kefa, meaning "castle of the rock.") The Romans built a fortress there circa A.D. 300 to patrol their empire's eastern border with Persia and monitor the transport of crops and livestock. In the fifth century A.D., the city became the Byzantine bishopric of Cephe; it was conquered in A.D. 640 by the Arabs, who called it Hisn Kayfa, or "rock fortress." Hasankeyf would next be successively ruled by the Turkish Artukid dynasty, the Ayyubids (a clan of Kurdish chieftains) and the Mongols, who conquered the region in 1260.

Hasankeyf emerged as an important commercial center along the Silk Road during the early Middle Ages. Marco Polo likely passed over its once-majestic stone, brick and wooden bridge, built around 1116 (only two massive stone piers and one arch remain). In 1515, the city was absorbed into the Ottoman Empire and has since remained a part of modern Turkey.

Among the site's most important structures are the ruins of the 12th-century palace of the Artukid kings; the El Rizk Mosque, built in 1409 by the Ayyubid sultan Suleiman; and the 15th-century cylindrical Tomb of Zeynel Bey (the eldest son of Uzun Hasan, who ruled over the region for 25 years). The tomb is decorated with glazed blue and turquoise bricks in geometric patterns that suggest a significant artistic link between Central Asia and Anatolia.

"About 200 different sites will be affected by the Ilisu Dam," says Zeynep Ahunbay, a professor of architectural history at Istanbul Technical University. "But Hasankeyf is the most visible and representative of all, due to its picturesque location and rich architectural content. It is one of the best-preserved medieval sites in Turkey."

The consortium of German, Swiss, Austrian and Turkish contractors charged with erecting the Ilisu Dam has already begun constructing a bridge and service roads for the transportation of building materials. The 453-foot-high dam will hold back the waters of the Tigris just before it flows into Syria and Iraq, creating a massive 121-square-mile reservoir that will raise the water level in Hasankeyf more than 200 feet. The consortium and the Turkish government maintain that the dam will provide power and irrigation to the area, encourage local development and create jobs. And, they say, the reservoir will be a magnet for tourists and water sports.

Opponents counter that most of the electricity generated by the dam will go to the big industrial centers in the west of the country. They advocate developing alternative energy sources instead, such as wind and solar power, and promoting cultural and environmental tourism.

"The dam will bring only destruction for us," says Ercan Ayboga, a hydrologist at Bauhaus University in Germany and spokeman for the Initiative to Keep Hasankeyf Alive, which was formed in January 2006. "There will be no benefit for the people of the region." The project will displace tens of thousands of residents and threaten hundreds of species, including the rare striped hyena and the Euphrates soft-shelled turtle. Moreover, Ayboga says, "We will lose cultural heritage on the highest level, not just local heritage, but world heritage."

In late 2008, the European members of the Ilisu Dam consortium put a six-month freeze on financing because the project failed to meet World Bank standards for environmental and cultural protection—thereby temporarily halting construction. For its part, the Turkish government has proposed moving 12 of Hasankeyf's 300 monuments to a newly created cultural park about a mile north of the city. But the plan has not mollified protesters. "It is totally impractical and technically impossible," says Ayboga. Many of the monuments are made from ashlar masonry, he notes, which are uniform stone blocks carefully sculpted to fit together; they cannot simply be taken apart and reassembled. The monuments would lose some of their original details as some blocks break and crumble, and recreating the proper alignment is difficult. "And the dramatic siting, the rock caves, the aspect of the river, all will be lost."

Professor Ahunbay agrees: "It is impossible to transfer and 'save' Hasankeyf at the same time. Many of the features of the old city were brought to light by excavation, yet there is still more to be revealed. One-third of the visible traces are still covered by rubble and earth."

Ahunbay takes the long view. "When the very short useful life of the dam is set against the long history of Hasankeyf and its potential to live for eternity," she says, "one without doubt must chose the survival of Hasankeyf."

	Endangered Site: Xumishan Grottoes, China A 65-foot statue of Buddha within one of 130 caves in northwest China is threatened by erosion and earthquakes. Eddie Gerald / Alamy

Xumishan Grottoes, China
By Lyn Garrity
This collection of ancient Buddhist cave temples dates back to the fifth and tenth centuries, A.D.

Throughout history, human settlement has been driven by three basic tenets: location, location, location. And the Xumishan grottoes—a collection of ancient Buddhist cave temples constructed between the fifth and tenth centuries A.D.—owe their existence to this axiom. Located in China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Xumishan (pronounced "SHU-me-shan") capitalized on its proximity to the Silk Road, the crucial trade artery between East and West that was a thoroughfare not only for goods but also for culture and religious beliefs. Along this route the teachings of Buddha traveled from India to China, and with those teachings came the cave temple tradition.

Hewed out of red sandstone cliffs—most likely by artisans and monks, funded by local officials and aristocrats—the Xumishan grottoes break into eight clusters that scatter for more than a mile over starkly beautiful, arid terrain. The construction of the approximately 130 grottoes spans five dynastic eras, from the Northern Wei (A.D. 386-534) to the Tang (A.D. 618-906). Although there are more extensive cave temples in China, Xumishan "is kind of a new pearl that's very little known," says Paola Demattè, an associate professor of Chinese art and archaeology at the Rhode Island School of Design. Historical records offer scant details about the site, but clues can be found among inscriptions on cave walls—such as the devotional "Lu Zijing" from A.D. 848, in which "a Buddha's disciple wholeheartedly attends to the Buddha"—and steles (stone slabs), particularly three from the 15th century that recount a sporadic history of the caves.

One of the steles contains the first written reference to the name "Xumishan"—a Chinese-language variation of "Mount Sumeru," the Sanskrit term for Buddhism's cosmic mountain at the center of the universe. Before the grottoes were carved, the site was known as Fengyishan. Nobody knows for sure when and why the mountain was renamed. Some have suggested that it was basically an exercise in rebranding, to make the site more compelling to pilgrims. Others, such as Harvard's Eugene Wang, an expert on Chinese Buddhist art, see no special significance in the name change, since Xumishan was a widely used Buddhist term by the time it became attached to the site.

Nearly half of the grottoes are bare and may have served as living quarters for monks. Wall paintings and statues decorate the rest, where influences from India and Central Asia are evident. Cave 33's square layout, with its partition wall punctuated by three portals and pillars that reach to the ceiling, resembles a temple style that emerged in India during the second or first century B.C. Central Asian influence can be seen in

Cave 51's two-level, four-chambered, square floor plan and in its central pillar, a Chinese variation on the dome-shaped stupa that symbolizes the Buddha's burial mound.

Overlooking the landscape is a 65-foot Tang dynasty Buddha, seated in a kingly posture. The colossal statue represents Maitreya, the Buddha of the future. The concept of Maitreya is somewhat similar to Christian, Jewish and Persian Messianic traditions, says Demattè: "Once the historic Buddha passed away, there was this great expectation that another Buddha would come." Multiple depictions of Maitreya can be found throughout Xumishan's grottoes.

Designated a nationally protected cultural relics site by China's State Council in 1982, Xumishan's grottoes face severe threats from wind and sand erosion, unstable rock beds and earthquakes. According to Demattè, only about 10 percent of the caves are in good condition. Some are so damaged they hardly seem like caves at all; others are blackened with soot from previous occupation or have suffered from vandalism or centuries' worth of droppings from birds and other pests.

After archaeologists from Beijing University surveyed the caves in 1982, some restoration efforts, however misguided, were made. Cement was used to patch parts of the colossal Buddha and to erect an overhang above the sculpture, which was exposed after a landslide in the 1970s. (Cement is ill advised for stabilizing sandstone, since it is a much harder substance than sandstone and contains potentially damaging soluble salts.) To prevent vandalism, grated gates that allow tourists to peer through them have been installed at cave entrances. China's cultural heritage advisers have also started training the local authorities about proper conservation practices.

Even with these measures, it's hard to say what the future holds for Xumishan. Increased scholarly investigation of the site may help. "We need to carefully document every inch," Wang says, "to preserve the grottoes digitally because there's no way to physically preserve them forever." It's a sentiment that resonates with one of the Buddha's main teachings—everything changes.

	Endangered Site: Visoki Decani Monastery, Kosovo "When you go in," says Pantelic, "you see exactly what you would have seen in the mid-1300s. That's what is amazing." Danita Delimont / Alamy

Time stands still within the Visoki Decani Monastery, nestled among chestnut groves at the foot of the Prokletije Mountains in western Kosovo. Declared a World Heritage Site in 2004, Unesco cited the 14th-century abbey as an irreplaceable treasure, a place where "traditions of Romanesque architecture meet artistic patterns of the Byzantine world."

The Serbian Orthodox monastery represents, according to art historian Bratislav Pantelic, author of a book on Decani's architecture, "the largest and best-preserved medieval church in the entire Balkans." Construction of Decani, dedicated to Christ the Pantocrator, or ruler of the universe, commenced in 1327 under King Stefan Uros III Decanski. (The monastery also functions as his mausoleum; the king's coffin rests at the head of the altar.)

The monarch's son, Stefan IV, completed his father's monument and was also responsible for the defining glory of the building's interior: its Byzantine frescoes, several thousand in all. The wall paintings incorporate thousands of individual figures illustrating such themes as the life of Christ, the veneration of the Virgin and the succession of kings in Stefan III's dynasty. Some of the tableaux—the story of Genesis, the Acts of the Apostles and the Proverbs of Solomon—are unique to Byzantine painting. Created over a span of 15 years, the frescoes exist in a state of extraordinary preservation. "When you go in," adds Pantelic, "you see exactly what you would have seen in the mid-1300s. That's what is amazing."

Across the centuries, Pantelic says, the abbey was regarded as "an ancient holy place that transcended religious divisions." In recent years, however, Decani's fate has been darkened by the cycle of ethnic violence that has engulfed the region since the early 1990s. Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanians have long pressed for independence from Serbia. In 1998, then-Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic sent armed forces to crush the separatist movement. A campaign of NATO bombing, followed by the introduction of United Nations peacekeepers (a presence continued today), was required to end the bloodshed.

During the fighting, the monks of Decani, following centuries-old tradition, sheltered refugees of all ethnicities. Yet, Decani's symbolic significance as a Serbian Orthodox cultural monument has rendered the abbey vulnerable.

On March 30, 2007, the monastery was attacked with grenades, presumably thrown by ethnic Albanian insurgents. Fortunately, the damage was "negligible," according to Sali Shoshaj, director of the Kosovo office of Cultural Heritage Without Borders, a Swedish organization founded in 1995 to preserve and restore Balkan sites. At least one person, reports Shoshaj, has been arrested. The situation has stabilized to the point that Decani has reopened to visitors, he says. Local guides, fluent in many languages, lead tours into the church.

Today, the abbey is protected by a force of Italian U.N. peacekeepers, who respectfully stand guard outside its cobblestone courtyard. Decani must "remain intact as part of the Balkan heritage," says Pantelic. "It belongs to all of us."

	Endangered Site: Jaisalmer Fort, India Interior sculpture in Jain Temple at Jaisalmer Fort. Blaine Harrington III / Corbis

Jaisalmer Fort, India
By Anika Gupta
In Rajahstan, the northwestern desert state of India, the famed fort has withstood sandstorms and earthquakes

Jaisalmer Fort maintains a silent vigil in the far northwestern corner of Rajasthan, India's desert state. Although the local airport is closed to commercial traffic, nearly half a million visitors somehow make their way to the fortress each year, even though it sits uncomfortably close to a contested border with India's longtime adversary Pakistan.

The pilgrims follow a 400-mile-long road from Jaipur. They drive through fierce desert winds that blow all the way to Delhi. In summer, they endure 105-degree heat. They come to an area where, for the past 2,000 years, water has been in short supply.

They come because there is no other place on earth like Jaisalmer.

Built in 1156 by the Indian King Rawal Jaisal, the fort is on a site that legend says he chose on the advice of a wise local hermit. In the Indian epic poem the Mahabharata, the mystic tells Jaisal that the Hindu deity Lord Krishna had praised the spot—and therefore, a fort built there would be almost invisible to the king's enemies. Indeed, from 30 miles away, visitors see only a sheer golden cliff, rising nearly 25 stories from the desert floor. The walls, of rich yellow sandstone unique to Rajasthan's quarries, shimmer like a mirage.

Jaisalmer was once home to the Rajputs—a tribe of warriors and traders who, for centuries, prospered by levying taxes on the merchants who wound between Egypt, Persia and India. Prone to warring not only against outsiders but among themselves, the Rajputs built a network of intricate fortresses to defend themselves and their accumulated wealth.

The fort's main gate, 60 feet tall and carved from Indian rosewood, has a crack that, according to legend, appeared when a Hindu saint crossed the threshold. Three concentric rings of sandstone walls open onto homes, stables and palaces that once housed Rajput kings. In contrast to the plain walls, these bear elaborate designs. Carvings of chariot wheels, fruit and flowers emerge from soft marble. Scalloped archways guard the walkways between buildings. Ornamented screens shade royal apartments.

"Rajput forts were not easy to build," says Vikramaditya Prakash, an architecture professor at the University of Washington. "The palaces and temples are filigreed in unbelievable detail." Although it has been generations since any Rajput kings ruled here, Jaisalmer Fort still houses some 2,000 residents, which makes it India's last "living fort." (India's other famous forts are abandoned, except for tourist guides.) This, too, draws visitors to Jaisalmer.

But as the visitors arrive at the ancient wonder, they encounter a modern controversy. During the past 20 years, the sandstone blocks of Jaisalmer Fort, immune to the elements for nearly a millennia, have begun to shift and crumble. And no one can agree why it's happening or who is to blame.

"The basic problem is the sewage system in the fort," says Luca Borella, who moved to Jaisalmer from France in 1994 and now owns a nine-room heritage hotel here. "The government built it quickly and without study." Borella says the sewage system leaks water directly into the fort's foundations. He and other residents have called upon the Indian government to repair it.

Jaisalmer's tourist boom has only made matters worse. According to local government estimates, the hotels, restaurants and shops that dot the historic ridges import nearly 50,000 gallons of water daily. This water then flows into the sewage system's already-overstressed open drains. Some international heritage foundations, such as the World Monuments Fund, are urging both tourists and residents to scale back their water use—especially public taps that dispense running water—if they want the fort to survive the next 1,000 years.

Asheesh Srivastava, a conservation architect with the Lucknow, India-based firm ANB Consultants, has surveyed Jaisalmer and agrees the sewage system needs to be redesigned. But he argues that global climate change is the primary culprit. "In an arid region that was not designed to face rainfall, we are now facing rainfall," says Srivastava. When Jaisalmer was built, the Thar Desert received six to nine inches of rain per year. In the summer of 2007, 22 inches of rain fell in just three days. Although some would consider increased rainfall a blessing for such an arid region, it can be a headache for preservationists. When Raja Jaisal's workers built Jaisalmer in the 12th century, they topped many of the buildings with three feet of mud as insulation to keep interiors cool. Now the rains turn the roofs to sludge, which causes buildings to collapse.

Jaisalmer's slow decline became a matter of urgency on January 26, 2001, when a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck near Jamnagar, a town in the coastal state of Gujarat, about 200 miles away. The tremors shook the foundations of the fort. "The buildings transfer load vertically," says Srivastava. "Every lateral movement damages the fortress."

After the quake, Srivastava and a team of engineers and surveyors from the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage went to the fort to assess the damage. The engineers rebuilt damaged outer walls with golden sandstone dug from nearby quarries and even employed the services of a camel to grind lime plaster with its hooves, according to the traditional method. To guard against damage from future tremors, they shored up weakened roof beams and inserted copper pins in the walls to protect against lateral thrust.

Srivastava and his group kept residents apprised of the restoration work through town meetings, but many Jaisalmer inhabitants remain dubious. Some fear the Indian National Trust will be satisfied only once all commercial activity at the fort has ceased. Others worry that the government might force them to relocate.

At the moment, Srivastava is working with another team to renovate the fort's largest structure, the granary. Built from four different types of stone, it once held enough grain to feed the fort's residents for 12 years. Once renovations are complete, local authorities hope to turn the granary into a spice museum where visitors can see samples of the pungent fenugreek, cumin and asafetida—still common in Indian cooking—that Rajputs added to food to preserve it. Other cultural projects, such as an amphitheater to showcase Rajput music, are also under consideration.

These initiatives will take time, but time is something this fort understands. For generations, it provided Rajput kings with a haven from their enemies and the harsh desert climate. Now it is up to residents, architects and heritage groups to protect it.

	Endangered Site: Chinguetti, Mauritania Mosque at Chinguetti, Mauritania. Camille Moirenc / Hemis / Corbis

The Sahara is expanding southward at a rate of 30 miles per year—and part of the desert's recently acquired territory is a 260-acre patch of land in north-central Mauritania, home to the village of Chinguetti, once a vibrant trading and religious center. Sand piles up in the narrow paths between decrepit buildings, in the courtyards of abandoned homes and near the mosque that has attracted Sunni pilgrims since the 13th century. After a visit in 1996, writer and photographer Kit Constable Maxwell predicted that Chinguetti would be buried without a trace within generations. "Like so many desert towns through history, it is a casualty of time and the changing face of mankind's cultural evolution," he wrote.

Coincidentally, that same year the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated the town a World Heritage Site, which spotlighted its rich past and precarious future. Yet, Chinguetti's fortunes have not improved. A decade later, a UNESCO report noted that global climate change is delivering a one-two punch: seasonal flash flooding, which causes erosion, and increased desertification, which leads to more frequent sandstorms and further erosion. Workers in Chinguetti have the Sisyphean task of wetting down the sand to prevent it from being blown about.

Today's Chinguetti is a shadow of the prosperous metropolis it once was. Between the 13th and 17th centuries, Sunni pilgrims en route to Mecca gathered here annually to trade, gossip, and say their prayers in the spare, mostly unadorned mosque, built from unmortared stone. A slender, square-based minaret is capped by five clay ostrich egg finials; four demarcate the cardinal directions and the fifth, in the center, when seen from the West, defines the axis toward Mecca.

Desert caravans were the source of Chinguetti's economic prosperity, with as many as 30,000 camels gathering there at the same time. The animals, which took refreshment at the oasis retreat, carried wool, barley, dates and millet to the south and returned with ivory, ostrich feathers, gold and slaves.

Once home to 20,000 people, Chinguetti now has only a few thousand residents, who rely mostly on tourism for their livelihood. Isolated and hard to reach (65 miles from Atar, by Land Rover; camels not recommended), it is nonetheless the most visited tourist site in the country; its mosque is widely considered a symbol of Mauritania. Non-Muslim visitors are prohibited from entering the mosque, but they can view the priceless Koranic and scientific texts in the old quarter's libraries and experience traditional nomadic hospitality in simple surroundings.

Chinguetti is one of the four ksours, or medieval trading centers, overseen by Mauritania's National Foundation for the Preservation of Ancient Towns (the others are Ouadane, Tichitt and Oualata). The United Nations World Heritage Committee has approved extensive plans for the rehabilitation and restoration of all four ksours and has encouraged Mauritania to submit an international assistance request for the project.

But such preservation efforts won't forestall the inevitable, as the Sahara continues to creep southward. Desertification has been an ongoing process in Mauritania for centuries. Neolithic cave paintings found at the Amogjar Pass, located between Chinguetti and Atar, depict a lush grassland teeming with giraffes and antelope. Today, that landscape is barren. May Cassar, professor of sustainable heritage at the University College London and one of the authors of the 2006 UNESCO report on climate change, says that solving the problem of desertification requires a sustained effort using advanced technologies.

Among the most promising technologies under development include methods for purifying and recycling wastewater for irrigation; breeding or genetically modifying plants that could survive in arid, nutrient-starved soil; and using remote sensing satellites to preemptively identify land areas at risk from desertification. Thus far, low-tech efforts elsewhere in the world have been a failure. along the Mongolian border, Chinese environmental authorities sought to reclaim land overrun by the Gobi Desert by planting trees, dropping seeds from planes and even covering the ground with massive straw mats. All to no avail.

"We as cultural heritage professionals are faced with a growing dilemma that we may have to accept loss, that not everything can be saved." says Cassar. Or, to quote an old saying: "A desert is a place without expectation."

	Endangered Site: Port City of Coro, Venezuela Coro is a "unique example of a well-conserved urban area with Spanish, Antillean, Dutch and indigenous architectural influences," says Venezuelan architect Maria Eugenia Bacci. Peter M. Wilson / Alamy

Port City of Coro, Venezuela
By Karen Larkins
A Spanish colonial port city has been preserved in spite of centuries of hurricanes and attacks from coastal pirates

A strong breeze blows along the southern coast of Venezuela's Paraguaná Peninsula, which is surely how Coro got its name, a derivation of the Caquetío Indian word curiana, meaning "place of winds." Today, the Caribbean port—arguably the first to call itself the "windy city"—is one of South America's oldest and best-preserved colonial towns, retaining much of its original layout and many of its early earthen structures.

Coro was founded by the Spanish in 1527 as the first capital of the Province of Venezuela. But just a year later, King Carlos I of Spain leased the province to the Welsers, a German banking house, to repay loans worth around 850,000 florins (6,600 pounds of gold), which he had borrowed to defeat the candidacy of Francis I of France to become the next Holy Roman Emperor. He succeeded, and was crowned Emperor Charles V by the pope in 1530. (Even then, campaigns for the top jobs were expensive.) Under German control, Coro became a base for explorers seeking El Dorado, South America's mythical city of gold. When the lease expired in 1546, Spain reclaimed the province and relocated the capital inland—away from pirates who preyed upon European colonies—125 miles to the south, in El Tocuyo. For the next century and a half, Coro was little more than a provincial outpost, vulnerable to both pirates and the unforgiving weather. Devastating raids in 1567, 1595 and 1659, as well as a cyclone in 1681, curbed the city's growth.

But, in the 18th century, a burgeoning trade in agricultural produce and livestock with the nearby Dutch islands of Curaçao and Bonaire, as well as several Spanish Caribbean islands, allowed Coro to blossom, and many of its 600 surviving historic structures date back to this era.

Coro is a "unique example of a well-conserved urban area with Spanish, Antillean, Dutch and indigenous architectural influences," says Venezuelan architect Maria Eugenia Bacci. And each building has a story to tell. The 16th-century Spanish-style Cathedral was Venezuela's first cathedral and the seat of South America's first bishopric. (The gun slits in its tower attest, also, to the Cathedral's role in defending the city.) The 18th-century Casa de las Ventanas de Hierro (House of the Iron Windows) is named for its wrought-iron window grilles, luxuries imported from Seville, Spain. The house has belonged to the same family—the Tellerías—for 230 years. The Balcón de Bolívar (Bolívar's Balcony), a rare two-story residence with elements of Antillean and Canary Island architectural styles, commemorates revolutionary leader Simon Bolívar's only visit to Coro, December 23, 1826, and his appearance on the balcony to greet supporters.

In 1993, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated Coro a World Heritage Site—then the only one in Venezuela. But by 2005, the city's deteriorating condition—caused, in part, by two consecutive years of heavy rains—prompted UNESCO to place Coro on its List of World Heritage in Danger. The organization issued a number of preservation recommendations, including a new drainage system and measures to control the growing traffic of tourists. "So far, nothing's been done," says Graziano Gasparini, a restoration architect and frequent visitor who originally nominated Coro as a World Heritage Site. "There was an allocation of $32 million on the part of the Venezuelan government to address Coro's problems, and no one knows where it went."

Coro remains on UNESCO's endangered list. The demise of this city, which has survived hurricanes and the predations of pirates, "would be a loss to everyone," says Bacci. "It's not just the patrimony of the country or of the region but of the world."

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