German caves, buildings up as heritage sites
Submissions represent ancient, new treasures
BLAUBEUREN, Germany — Two sites with cultural treasures separated by more than 40,000 years — caves with art dating to the Ice Age and buildings designed by a Bauhaus master less than 100 years ago — highlight Germany’s submissions for the prestigious World Heritage Site designation by the U.N.’S cultural agency, UNESCO.
The six Hohle Fels caves are in the western state of Baden-wuerttemberg, where archeologists have discovered flutes made from mammoth ivory along with other ancient instruments and carvings. The Bauhaus buildings in northeastern Germany were designed by the school’s second director, Hannes Meyer.
A World Heritage designation brings sites some protection from development, pollution and other threats. It can also raise a region’s profile and draw more visitors.
UNESCO’S World Heritage Committee is meeting in Poland in early July. This year’s nominations for World Heritage sites include seven natural sites, one both natural and cultural and 27 cultural sites. Other cultural sites being considered include the Valongo Wharf in Rio, the Sambor Prei Kuk archaeological sites in Cambodia, the Kujataa subarctic farming landscape in Greenland, and the landscapes of Dauria in Mongolia.
The caves in Baden-wuerttemberg in the valleys of the Ach and Lone rivers have been excavated since the 19th century and have yielded hundreds of personal ornaments, at least eight musical instruments and more than 40 small figurines carved from mammoth ivory.
Archaeology professor Nicholas Conard, whose team discovered a 40,000-year-old mammoth ivory figure known as the Venus of Hohle Fels after the cave in which it was found, said the site fulfills the outstanding universal cultural value that UNESCO is looking for.
Other finds in the caves include an 8-inch phallus carved from siltstone, believed to be 32,000 years old, and a broken figure of a half man-half lion carved from mammoth ivory.
Fast forward from the Baden-wuerttemberg caves to the 20th century, when the Bauhaus school of architecture revolutionized design and aesthetic concepts between 1919 and 1933.
Under consideration are buildings designed by Meyer known as Laubenganghaeuser — literally “housing with balcony access” — in the housing estate in Dessau, southwest of Berlin, as well as a trade union school in Bernau, north of Berlin.
The yellow-brick school, built for the ADGB union in 1930, was designed by Meyer and colleague Hans Wittwer and is “today still a paragon of functional architectural design, which is freely and thoughtfully integrated into its natural surroundings,” according to the foundation that looks after it.