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Cultural Preservation

Tripartite Mahzor, Lake Constance Area, ca. 1322 (Oxford, Bodleian Library) - The Tripartite Mahzor is a magnificent illuminated manuscript divided into three volumes, housed today in Budapest, London and Oxford. It is adorned by paintings in colors and gold, produced in a non-Jewish workshop. Here the initial word: כל ("All") opening the Eve of Yom Kippur prayers is written within a colorful panel adorned with hybrid creatures typical to this workshop. This image is taken from the Ursula and Kurt Schubert Archive held in the Center for Jewish Art.

World’s Largest Online Database of Jewish Art Preserves At-Risk Heritage Objects

Take a tour through the Bezalel Narkiss Index of Jewish Art, which contains more than 260,000 entries from 41 countries

Young people of the U.S. Virgin Islands march along in a carnival parade, amid the destruction of Hurricane Hugo in 1989.

How Cultural Resilience Made a Difference After Hurricane Hugo And Could Help Again

When the 1989 hurricane devastated the U.S. Virgin Islands, Smithsonian folklorists were working on an upcoming Folklife Festival

The Innovative Spirit fy17

Want to Learn Cherokee? How About Ainu? This Startup Is Teaching Endangered Languages

Tribalingual founder Inky Gibbens explains how saving languages is a means of preserving different worldviews

Humpback whales sounding in Windham Bay, Alaska.

What Humpback Whales Can Teach Us About Compassion

Are these orca-fighting, seal-saving good Samaritans really just in it for themselves?

Members of Chamorro organizations, including the children from the Hurao Cultural Camp, perform a burial ceremony.

A Brief, 500-Year History of Guam

The Chamorro people of this Pacific island have long been buffeted by the crosswinds of foreign nations

Michael Twitty, a culinary historian and living-history interpreter at the Stagville Plantation in Durham, North Carolina.

Food Historian Reckons With the Black Roots of Southern Food

In his new book, Michael Twitty shares the contributions that enslaved African-Americans and their descendants have made to southern cuisine

This island has been a boy's club for hundreds of years.

Trending Today

This Island Can Only Be Visited by Men

Okinoshima is officially an Unesco world heritage site—but tradition bans women from its shores

Mount Aragats in Aragatsotn, Armenia.

Armenia

Why This Composer Made Melodies Out of Mountainsides

This forgotten Armenian musicologist literally drew the landscapes into his folksong scores

French American Music and Dance, 1983

Commentary

After 50 Years of Song, Dance, Food, Even Hog Calling, at the Folklife Festival, Is It Still Worthwhile?

Recognizing traditional culture in the information age is ever more important argues the director of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage

Linguist and cultural preservationist Daryl Baldwin was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2016.

How to Resurrect a Lost Language

Piecing together the language of the Miami tribe, linguists Daryl Baldwin and David Costa are creating a new generation of speakers

This really old statue has a surprisingly modern tale to tell.

Cool Finds

This 3,500-Year-Old Statue of a Syrian Refugee Remains One of Archaeology’s Most Important Finds

King Idrimi is getting digitized and his autobiography is as relevant as ever

Heritage scientist Cecilia Bembibre captures the smell of a 18th-century bible at Knole House.

New Research

The Quest to Better Describe the Scent of Old Books

Describing a unique smell just got easier thanks to a pair of olfactory detectives

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault. A new vault will protect the world's books, archives and documents on long-lasting film

Cool Finds

A Second Doomsday Vault—This One to to Preserve Data—Is Opening in Svalbard

Known as the Arctic World Archive, it will store copies of books, archives and documents on special film

ISIS destroyed the Temple of Baalshamin in Syria in 2015.

Trending Today

New Fund Pledges to Protect Cultural Heritage from War and Terror

Nations and philanthropists join together to safeguard one another’s priceless treasures

A Roman amphitheater in Bosra, Syria. Bosra, a UNESCO World Heritage site, has been damaged by civil war.

Scientists Shoot Stones to Study War’s Impact on Heritage Sites

The bullets caused hidden networks of fractures beneath the stones’ surfaces

This Roman road is part of a newly opened McDonalds.

Cool Finds

New McDonalds Has a Cool Design Element: an Ancient Roman Road

Have a bit of history with that Happy Meal

Prayer wheels are just one of the sounds preserved and remixed in a new project.

Cool Finds

Listen to the Sounds of Sacred Spaces Around the World

A new project documents, then remixes, religious and spiritual sounds

Dachau's gate had a chilling message for its inmates.

Trending Today

Stolen ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ Gate Returns to Dachau

The identity of the thieves remains a mystery

Eight Secrets of the Taj Mahal

One of the world’s greatest memorials to love remains a place of mystery

The smooching couple in the center left gave the bakery its nickname.

Cool Finds

How a Pompeiian Bakery Became This Year’s Hot Date Destination

The romance never dies at the House of the Chaste Lovers

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