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Chersonese Ancient Greek City Gains World Heritage Status

The ruins of the ancient Greek city of Chersonese Taurica
The ruins of the ancient Greek city of Chersonese Taurica

The UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has decided to add the Ancient Greek City of Tauric Chersonese and its Chora to the World Heritage List on Sunday.
The decision was made during the 37th session of the World Heritage Committee in Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia.

The Ancient Greek City of Tauric Chersonese and its Chora is the 7th property of Ukraine, which was inscribed on the prestigious list.
Located on a peninsula between Quarantinnaya and Pesochnaya Bay, the remains of the ancient city of Tauric Chersonese are visible in a vast archaeological area of over 40 hectares, according to the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), an advisory body to the World Heritage Committee on cultural properties.

The city was inhabited continuously between the 5th century BC and the 14th century AD, when it suddenly declined and remained abandoned for centuries until it was rediscovered as a strategic location by the military in the 20th century, the document said.

It appears that its very abandonment and the later military use of part of the site as a quarantine cemetery have led to an isolation that allowed the physical preservation of much of the site until present times, it said, adding that merely an orthodox monastery built in the center of the ancient city has left an irreversible mark of later usage.

The city is surrounded by fortification walls in two lines, it said. The first of these dates back to the 5th century BC while the second was added during an expansion in the 4th century BC.

“ICOMOS considers that Tauric Chersonese is an exceptional example of an archaeological landscape which combines the archaeological site of a Greek peripheral polis and its extended chora and that this claim to Outstanding Universal Value is justified,” the document said.
“Tauric Chersonese represents in an exceptional manner the cultural and trade exchanges between Greek and Roman Empires and the Crimea as well as the Scythian state.
“On behalf of the entire committee, I would like to congratulate Ukraine for the inscription of this cultural property on the World Heritage List,” Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An, chairman of the session, said during the meeting after the site was listed.
The World Heritage Committee is currently holding its 37th session in Phnom Penh and will close in Angkor on June 27.
(source: xinhua)

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