A Survey On the Visibility Of Mosaic Heritage On The UNESCO World Heritage List

Abstract

World Heritage Programme was launched under the auspices of UNESCO by adopting the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage in 1972. 1223 cultural, natural, and mixed properties have been inscribed on the World Heritage List (WHL) from 1978 to 2024 to ensure international consideration and assistance in their preservation as patrimony of humanity. This paper offers an insight into the visibility of mosaic heritage in this corpus through a survey of references to mosaics in the Statements of Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) on the homepages of World Heritage properties at UNESCO’s website. After an introduction on the requirements for inscription on WHL, distribution of mosaics in World Heritage properties is surveyed in reference to their category, location on the globe, and setting within the property to highlight over- and under-representations, with inspiration from the current strategy of achieving a balanced representation of heritage types, chronologies-regions, and themes on WHL. Then selected “exceptions” in terms of mosaic types, locations, and periods are presented to contribute in increasing their visibility, followed by “highlights” in whose Statements of OUV the word “mosaic” is most repeated. Adopting the wholistic approach recommended in the World Heritage Programme, both sections aim to contextualise the selected examples in the overall corpus and mosaic heritage as an element forming and representing their attributes of OUV. After observing the thus exemplified variety in the mosaic heritage so far inscribed on WHL, concluding remarks highlight areas of further research to deepen the presented visibility analysis. © (2024), (). All Rights Reserved.