Heritage

Moustapha Adib: “Lebanon’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites Are a Legacy for All Mankind”

Lebanon's ambassador to UNESCO and Berlin, Moustapha Adib, spoke with This is Beirut about the upcoming special session organized by the UN on November 18 in Paris. The session will focus on enhancing protection for Lebanon's historic sites, which are being threatened by Israeli airstrikes. UNESCO announced on Thursday, November 7, that its ...

AI Brings St. Peter's Basilica to Life with Digital Twin

The public will soon be able to access every detail of St. Peter’s Basilica through a virtual portal, thanks to 400,000 images of the monument analyzed by artificial intelligence, according to a project presented Monday at the Vatican. Starting December 1, visitors to the basilica's official website will discover a digital reconstruction of its ...

Nuhad Es-Said Pavilion for Culture: A Beacon in Lebanon’s Dark Night

In these dark times, when Lebanon’s heritage is brought to its knees, when the ancient jewels of our culture teeter under bombardment, our hearts ache for Baalbeck, Tyre, and many other mythical places already wounded, whose future hangs by a thread. When the iconic Palmyra Hotel in Baalbeck, witness to so many eras, lies injured by bombs, a ...

Notre-Dame de Paris: A Jewel of French Popular Culture

In a month, on December 7 and 8, 2024, Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris is set to reopen for visitors and worshipers, five years after it was devastated by fire. Beyond being an emblematic (religious and historical) monument of Paris, and more broadly of France, Notre-Dame de Paris has, for decades and even centuries, inspired numerous writers, ...

Parliamentarians Appeal to UNESCO to Protect Heritage Amid War

In an urgent appeal to the international community, a group of Lebanese parliamentarians has called on UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay to intervene and protect Lebanon’s cultural heritage sites, which are facing mounting threats due to the ongoing Israeli attacks and destruction. The MPs, led by Najat Saliba, delivered a message to ...

Archaeological Heritage: Open Letter from the Baalbeck International Festival

We urgently appeal to the heads of diplomatic missions, international organizations, heritage specialists, and all influential stakeholders to intervene and halt the relentless assaults on the city of Baalbeck and its archaeological complex, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1984. Recent aggressions near the Acropolis have inflicted ...

Baalbeck Sites Endangered by Israeli Strikes: An Update from Governor Bachir Khodr

Following repeated evacuation orders directed at the residents of Baalbeck by Avichay Adraee, the Arabic-speaking spokesperson of the Israeli army, the Lebanese are anxious, fearing the potential destruction of the historic city. They are deeply concerned about the tragic fate of tens of thousands of people ordered to evacuate their towns and ...

Baalbeck and Its Roman Ruins Deserted by Locals and Tourists

For over a month, the iconic Palmyra Hotel has not hosted a single tourist coming to explore Baalbeck’s Roman ruins, near which Israeli bombs are falling. Yet Rabih Salika refuses to leave the establishment where he has worked for 24 years. The war between Israel and the pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement, deeply rooted in Baalbeck (east), has not ...