Sharjah archaeological body holds meeting

Sohaila Ahmed, Staff Reporter

The Committee of the World Heritage file of the Cultural Landscapes of the Central Region in Sharjah has announced that it will submit to the nominations list of World Heritage Sites.

Supervised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) during the 2021 sessions, the file will highlight the strong points of the committee to ensure their final inclusion of the Central Region in the list of sites supervised by the International Organization.

 This decision was made during a meeting held by the Committee at the offices of the Sharjah Archaeological Authority (SAA). The meeting was attended by Eisa Yousif, Director of Archaeology and Tangible Heritage at SAA, who is also Chairman of the Committee of the World Heritage File of Cultural Landscapes.

Representatives of ArchaeoConcept Sàrl including Dr Cynthia Dunning, responsible for Archaeology Projects at ICOMOS-ICAM, and Ellinor Dunning were also present at the meeting to supervise the writing of the nomination file, along with several archaeologists and experts in the management of cultural heritage.

This meeting was held after the UAE’s tentative list of seven UAE sites in the initial introductory list of World Heritage Sites in cooperation and coordination with the local authorities which supervise them.

Three of the tentative sites are located in the Emirate of Sharjah, namely Sir Bu Nair, the Cultural Landscape of the Central Region (Mleiha) and Sharjah, the gateway to the Trucial States. Moreover, other sites are Umm an-Nar Island in Abu Dhabi, Khor Dubai, Ed-Dur Site in Umm Al Quwain and Al Bidya Mosque in Fujairah.

Eisa Yousif emphasised the importance of this meeting to review the procedures carried out by the Committee and to discuss the completion of the file for the nomination, to identify the shortcomings, and raise several important topics in the listing that will contribute in highlighting the rich heritage of the UAE, which goes back hundreds of years.