Articles tagged as Cultural Preservation

For the first time in hundreds of years, some seders might include rice and beans.

The Jewish Conservative movement relaxes a 13th-century ban on rice, corn and beans during Passover

April 21, 2016

Goulash began as a humble soup-stew, cooked over an open fire by Hungarian herdsmen. The addition of refined varieties of paprika from ground red chilies made the dish an international staple.

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: The Danube

The Humble Beginnings of Goulash

The hearty soup-stew known around the world began as the everything-goes-in meal of Hungarian herdsmen

April 2016

Cool Finds

An Italian Senator Wants Kids to Learn About Wine in School

A bill would add wine classes to elementary school curriculums

April 7, 2016

Rima Timbaryan collects dough for baking.

Armenia

Tastes of Memory: How to Bake an Authentic Armenian Lavash

Preserving Armenian culture, memory and identity in the kitchen

April 7, 2016

A self-portrait made by Johnny Rotten on the walls of the studio where the Sex Pistols recorded their first demos.

Cool Finds

Johnny Rotten’s Graffiti Made These Buildings Historic Landmarks

The Sex Pistols’ home and recording studio are now protected as a cultural heritage sites

March 24, 2016

A red pigment reference from the Forbes Pigment Collection helped prove that a supposed Jackson Pollock painting was a fake.

This Could Be the World’s Most Colorful Library

Harvard’s Forbes Pigment Collection preserves some of history’s most precious colors—and helps conserve the world’s greatest art

March 24, 2016

This 12,000-year-old city could soon be inundated thanks to a hydroelectric dam.

Unless things change, these historic sites could disappear from the map forever

March 24, 2016

On a remote plateau, researchers reveal a royal capital whose splendors prefigure the glories of the Angkor complex.

The Lost City of Cambodia

Deep in the jungles of southeast Asia, archaeologists have rediscovered the remains of an invisible kingdom that may have been the template for Angkor Wat

April 2016

Wacky Victorian women play behind a clothing screen, ca. 1900.

Cool Finds

Researchers Seek Silly Sherlocks to Dig up Victorian-Era Jokes

Joke detectives are using the British Library to uncover what made Victorians chuckle

March 18, 2016

Italy wants its Neapolitan pizza to be added to Unesco’s cultural heritage list

March 9, 2016

Little accent, big debate

February 18, 2016

Virtual reality headsets at the 2015 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam allow visitors to view digital reconstructions of artifacts destroyed by ISIS.

The Heroic Effort to Digitally Reconstruct Lost Monuments

Scholars create a virtual archive of antiquities destroyed by extremists in Syria and Iraq

March 2016

Tropical hardwoods wait to be milled into boards near the coastal city of Miri.

In Borneo’s Ruined Forests, Nomads Have Nowhere to Go

The island’s hunter-gatherers are losing their home to the unquenchable global demand for timber and palm oil

March 2016

The statue of Abu Bint Deimun, from third century B.C. Hatra, Iraq. A global network of preservationists are teaming up to protect the world’s antiquities.

Crash Courses Prepare Art Conservators for Catastrophic Disasters

Smithsonian experts train a brave band of conservators in northern Iraq to brace buildings and rescue artifacts in a hurry

March 2016

A human-headed winged bull from the eighth century B.C. Assyrian royal palace in Khorsabad. ISIS razed the city’s ruins last year.

The Race to Save Syria’s Archaeological Treasures

The deliberate destruction of antiquities by ISIS and others in the birthplace of human civilization is cultural genocide

March 2016

Cool Finds

This Unfinished Film Highlights the Daily Lives of Black Americans in the 1960s

‘The American Negro’ shares stories of black surgeons, mothers and workers

February 15, 2016

The sun rises over Joshua Tree National Park. The newlydesignated Castle Mountains, Mojave Trails and Sand to Snow national monuments will connect Joshua Tree to other federally protected lands in a massive 1.8-million-acre preservation bid.

This time, the California desert was the president’s preservation focus

February 12, 2016

A ground view of the proposed design for "The Weight of Sacrifice," which will serve as the new national World War I memorial.

One hundred years later, WWI will finally get a large-scale memorial in Washington, D.C.

January 27, 2016

An arch made from a bowhead whale jaw stands over traditional whaling boats in Barrow, Alaska.

As the Arctic Erodes, Archaeologists Are Racing to Protect Ancient Treasures

Once locked in frozen Alaskan dirt, Iñupiat artifacts are being lost to the sea, sometimes faster than scientists can find them

January 26, 2016

Amber Anderson and Sara Sanders were awarded an honorable mention for the 2015 Library of Congress Leicester B. Holland prize.

Step back in time with architectural drawings of buildings steeped in history

January 26, 2016