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Site-Seeing: World Heritage Sites We Treasure

by Zegrahm Expeditions, July 2006

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IRELAND
Skellig Michael
Inscribed in 1996. Eight miles off the coast of County Kerry lie the Skellig Islands, a cluster of rugged stone pinnacles ruled by thousands of seabirds. The only evidence of human habitation is the Celtic monastery of Skellig Michael, built atop a 44-acre island that rises 600 feet above the water. Nearly 500 stone steps, constructed by the original monks in the 7th century, are the only way up or down the cliffside. Dedicated to the Archangel Michael, the site is remarkably well-preserved because of its extreme remoteness and exemplifies the extreme monasticism of the first Irish Christians. It was inhabited by monks who lived in stone beehive-shaped huts until about the 12th century.

Archaeological Ensemble of the Bend of the Boyne – Newgrange
Inscribed in 1993. The world’s largest concentration of prehistoric megalithic art is located just 30 miles north of Dublin. The passage tombs of Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth make up a complex that dates back to about 3200 B.C., making them 1,000 years older than Stonehenge and 600 years older than the Pyramids at Giza. Neolithic farming communities built these huge, circular, mound-like edifices with 200,000 tons of stone brought from 50 miles away—before the invention of the wheel. While their exact purpose is still unclear, it is agreed they were built for religious, astronomical, or funerary purposes. At Newgrange, at sunrise on the winter solstice, a single sunbeam floods the tomb’s inner chambers with brilliant light.

Visit these sites on our Circumnavigation of Ireland voyage in July 2007.

LEBANON
Byblos
Inscribed in 1984. With a 7,000-year histori-cal record, and ruled consecutively by the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans, Byblos falls into the “oldest continuously inhabited city” category. Its coastal location made it a commercial and religious capital through the millennia. Byblos has two unique claims to fame: As archaeologists excavated the original city, they uncovered the earliest evidence of city planning, and, during Egyptian rule, the scribes of the city developed the first alphabetic phonetic script—a precursor to our own alphabet. When the Greeks took power in 1200 B.C., they named the city Byblos, Greek for papyrus. Commercial papyrus trade brought great prosperity to the region, and the new alphabet, which found its way to Greece by 800 B.C. transformed the nature of human communication.

Baalbek
Inscribed in 1984. Once called Heliopolis, City of the Sun, during Egyptian rule, the number of temples on the Baalbek site indicates that it was an important place of worship until the early years of Christianity. The most impressive ruins are those built by Rome: the Great Court of Jupiter with six (of the original 54) remaining columns soaring more than 60 feet over the site, the Temple of Bacchus, and the circular Temple of Venus. The three massive, precisely cut stones on the Grand Terrace weigh more than 1,000 tons a piece, making the Baalbek site the largest stone block construction in the world, and an engineering feat that has neither equal nor explanation.

Visit these sites on our Crossroads of Empires: Jordan to Crete voyage in March 2007.