History Fix

Ep. 116 UNESCO: How the Preservation of Our Collective History Became a Global Mission with Gary Arndt

• Shea LaFountaine • Episode 116

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This week I teamed up with fellow podcaster and prolific world traveler, Gary Arndt, from the "Everything Everywhere Daily" podcast to talk about UNESCO, an organization with a mission to save natural wonders and cultural heritage sites around the world. You'll hear the story of how UNESCO got it's start, specifically the painstaking dismantling, transport, and reconstruction of one some ancient Egypt's greatest wonders, threatened by modern development, and how the world came together to save it. You'll also hear about Gary's travels, including his favorite and least favorite UNESCO sites.  

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Situated over 200 feet above Lake Nasser, near the village of Abu Simbel in southern Egypt, four massive figures stare out at the vast landscape. Seemingly cut into the cliff face itself, this man’s face, repeated four times, is vaguely familiar. He is seated 65 feet tall, with his feet side by side, his hands resting upon his knees, four of him flanking a much smaller temple doorway. At his feet, reaching only halfway up his shins, stand other figures - his favorite wife, his mother, his first two sons, and his first six daughters. The Great Temple at Abu Simbel, flanked by the imposing figures of Pharoah Ramses II, is one of the most iconic sites in Ancient Egypt, a remarkable testament to the brilliance of ancient Egyptian achievement. It’s awe inspiring to stand before, to gaze at the stoic stony faces, to think how very long this temple, these statues have stood in this place, gazing out at the lake. Except, they haven’t. They haven’t been there very long at all, and neither has the lake. Let’s fix that. 


Hello, I’m Shea LaFountaine and you’re listening to History Fix where I discuss lesser known true stories from history you won’t be able to stop thinking about. I wasn’t lying in the intro. The Great Temple at Abu Simbel, as well as its neighbor, the Temple of Hathor and Nefertari, used to be located 200 feet lower and almost 700 feet closer to Lake Nasser, which didn’t exist yet. Starting in the 1960s AD, not BC, the construction of the Aswan High Dam across the Nile River meant rising water, a reservoir, Lake Nasser, one of the world’s largest artificial lakes, that threatened to swallow these treasured Egyptian sites. 


Over 3,200 years ago during the reign of Ramses II, the Great Temple and the Temple of Hathor and Nefertari, also known as the Small Temple, were painstakingly carved into a sandstone mountainside a little over 300 feet apart, a feat that took some 20 years to complete. The Temple of Hathor and Nefertari was only the second temple in Egyptian history, that we know of, to be dedicated to a queen, Ramses’ chief wife Nefertari. It’s also one of only a few surviving examples where a queen is depicted as the same height as a king. This temple is adorned with 6 statues of equal height. The two on either side of the door and the two on the ends are all Ramses II, standing this time. Between the Ramses stands queen Nefertari, dressed as the goddess Hathor. Just like at the Great Temple, smaller statues of some of their many children flank their legs, knee height.


We believe these temples and accompanying statues were carved around 1265 BC in the Kingdom of Nubia which was then under Egypt’s control. It’s very likely that Ramses II was trying to impress and Egyptify the Nubian people, whose territory he relied on for gold and other important trade goods. Eventually, the temples fell into disuse and were more or less forgotten about, save for some ancient Greek graffiti scrawled into the left leg of one of the seated Ramses statues. For centuries they lay forgotten, to Europeans at least, half buried under the sand. I’m sure Egyptians were well aware of them. But to the Europeans who wrote our history, they were unknown until March of 1813. That’s when a Swiss researcher named Johan Ludwig Burchhardt air quotes “discovered” the temples and statues sticking out of the sand. He wrote quote “I was about to ascend the sandy side of the mountain by the same way I had descended; when having luckily turned more to the southward, I fell in with what is yet visible of four immense colossal statues cut out of the rock, … they stand in a deep recess, excavated in the mountain; but it is greatly to be regretted, that they are now almost entirely buried beneath the sands, which are blown down here in torrents. The entire head, and part of the breast and arms of one of the statues are yet above the surface; of the one next to it scarcely any part is visible, the head being broken off, and the body covered with sand to above the shoulders; of the other two, the bonnets only appear. It is difficult to determine, whether these statues are in a sitting or standing posture; their backs adhere to a portion of rock, which projects from the main body, and which may represent a part of a chair, or may be merely a column for support,” end quote. 


The temples were excavated and quickly rejoined the ranks of known wonders of the ancient world. But by the 1950s, a plan was put in place by the Egyptian government to build a dam across the Nile River, the Aswan High Dam it was to be called. Egypt desperately needed this dam. It would improve agriculture by creating a reliable water source for irrigation. For all of time, Egyptians had been at the mercy of the annual flooding of the Nile. This dam would control that flooding and harness it for agricultural use. It would also provide a much needed power supply, electricity to feed Egypt’s burgeoning industrial development. But, this dam would also create a massive artificial lake, a reservoir, that would sink the temples at Abu Simbel underwater. And you may be thinking, “oh my, you know, what’s Egypt to do?” But the really remarkable thing about this story is that it wasn't just Egypt that had a problem to solve. Much of the world came together to save these priceless monuments, something like 50 countries took part in this, donated money at the very least. 


The ultimate solution was to move the temples and their accompanying statues, a seemingly impossible feat. But if ancient Egyptian laborers could toil under the desert sun with copper chisels and simple stone tools, then surely we, with our 20th century technology, could save the fruits of their labor. Matthew Wills explains the process in a JSTOR Daily article writing quote “In an epic feat of engineering, Abu Simbel’s statues and temple chambers were disassembled, relocated to higher ground, and then reassembled. More than twenty other sites were also moved during the international Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia between 1960 and 1980. Some of these monuments were gifted to other countries, like the Temple of Dendur now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Abu Simbel was the most elaborate of the relocations and captured the imagination of many around the world—even as critics assailed the site as a monument to a megalomaniac, representing the “hollow, narcissistic, imperialist power” of a despot.” Referring to Ramses II there. Which, I mean, yeah, 8 statues of yourself between the two temples is a bit excessive. But, you know, still worth saving. He goes on quote “The Abu Simbel temples were ultimately moved only a couple hundred feet, but to do so the statues had to be cut by hand. Over 7,000 other blocks, weighing from 20 to 30 tons, were also cut and moved…The interior temple spaces were reconstructed under an artificial hill supported by concrete domes.The feat was akin to something out ancient Egypt, much of it done by hand, only with the support of steel, concrete, trucks, bulldozers, and giant cranes, as well as a new kind of mortar made of Nubian sand and “copious volumes” of plastic epoxy injected into the sandstone to keep it from crumbling,” end quote. 


A massive, but ultimately successful feat, one that would not have been possible without a particular organization that got its start in the 1940s, just after World War II. The world was in shock. The true horrors of what the Nazi regime had done under German dictator Adolf Hitler were just coming to light. The holocaust, the murders of millions of innocent people, far worse than they feared, discovered only upon liberating the concentration camps at the close of the war. And, while that certainly can’t be topped, other horrors came to light as well, the destruction of untold ancient artifacts at the hands of the Nazis as they tried to purge the world of anything non-Aryan. They looted and intentionally destroyed priceless, irreplaceable antiquities, treasures from our past that we will never get back. And so, reeling from this, from these grisly discoveries, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, was born, with the goal of preserving our collective global cultural heritage. And it was UNESCO that headed the relocation project that saved the temples at Abu Simbel and later declared it a World Heritage Site. 


That may have been my longest introduction ever because now we’re getting to the meat of it. Today we’re talking about UNESCO and, specifically, UNESCO World Heritage Sites like Abu Simbel. We talked about one of them just a few weeks ago, Rapa Nui, Easter Island, which became a World Heritage Site in 1995. And I’m very, very excited because I’ve teamed up with a very special guest this week, an expert on the topic really.


Gary: My name is Gary Arndt, and what I currently do now is I'm a podcaster. I have a popular history podcast. But for 13 years, I traveled around the world as a travel photographer and a travel blogger. So some combination of that is, I guess, why I'm here.


Gary is being humble. He’s kind of a big deal. Gary is an award winning travel photographer and travel blogger whose blog called Everything Everywhere once ranked among Time Magazine’s top 25 Blogs in the World. Now, he’s a super successful podcaster, creator of Everything Everywhere Daily where he shares about interesting people, places, and things from throughout history. It is everything, everywhere, and it is daily. He puts out an episode every single day which blows my mind as a fellow podcaster because I know how much goes into this. Through his work as a travel photographer and blogger, Gary has visited over 130 countries and all 7 continents. He takes a particular interest in visiting UNESCO World Heritage sites which is why I have him here with me today. 


Shea: What sparked your interest in travel? Why did you become a world traveler?


Gary: Growing up, I was the kid who used to read a lot. My dad got a copy of National Geographic magazine, and I'd always read it and was fascinated by these places. I had an internet company that I started in the 90s, and when I sold it, the company that I sold it to is a big multinational corporation, and they sent me on an around-the-world tour. Three weeks, I circumnavigated the globe. It was the first time I'd ever really been out of North America, and I was in Tokyo, Taipei, Singapore, Frankfurt, Brussels, London and Paris and that kind of got the juices flowing and then I went on a couple short trips I went to Iceland by myself and then I went on a research trip to Argentina and at some point I realized I had gone back to school to study geology I realized I didn't want to be an academic And I came up with the idea of traveling around the world. I was going to sell my house and travel around the world for a year. And one year turned into over a decade because it turns out the world's really big.


Shea: Right. Have you kept track of like how many places you've been as far as like, I don't know if cities or or even countries I don't know how you would…


Gary: Not cities but I have like uh countries world heritage sites national park service sites uh yeah I keep a pretty strict list for all that stuff.


Shea: yeah now I have to ask you just out of personal curiosity have you ever been to the Outer Banks of North Carolina before?


Gary: No.


Shea: That’s where I’m from! You should totally go! 


Gary: I've been to all 50 states twice but my North Carolina experience was when I was in college, I was on the debate team and we always went to Wake Forest. So that's most of what I know about North Carolina. And I visited the Blue Ridge Mountains and stuff.


Shea: Yes, the mountains are beautiful.


Gary: And well, I went to Norfolk.


Shea: That's very close. Yeah.


Gary: I got to land and get launched from a nuclear aircraft carrier.


Shea: Oh wow!


Gary: I got to land and get launched from a nuclear aircraft carrier.


Shea: No, definitely not. 


Gary: But those are my North Carolina experiences.


Shea: I live in Kill Devil Hills, which you're probably more familiar with like Kitty Hawk, Mags Head. No one's really heard of Kill Devil Hills, but very unique in all the world place. Highly recommend. Ocracoke Island, if you can ever go to Ocracoke Island, it's a really special place. But how do you choose where to go? Do you have like a selection process or is it kind of like a random, how do you know where you're going next?


Gary: When I started traveling, uh, I just started going west. And if you always have a choice between east or west, go west because it's a lot easier to adjust to time zones. It's just staying up a little bit later. Um, Cause like the worst jet lag I ever had was flying from LA to London. And we took off for like two, three in the afternoon. And just when you're landing in the morning is when you would go to bed normally. And it was horrible because I had my, my, you did, there just was no sleep. And so I was just running on Red Bull the whole day. Uh, but I began by going west and just island hopping. It took me about nine months to cross the Pacific ocean back in 2007 when I started and. After that, it became a lot of where the opportunity arose. I ended up working with different brands, travel companies. They would send me on trips. I worked with tourism boards. And a lot of that was if I had an opportunity to do something or go somewhere that I haven't been, I would usually pick that over doing something I've done before. And when I started, I've always been fascinated by little countries. Like, why do they exist? So I visited, the start of my trip, I started visiting places that were places that nobody goes to. I was going to Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Marshall Islands. And that, I started a blog when I started traveling. And the fact that I was going to these oddball places, I think, kind of garnered me a following. Because a lot of people that go on a trip and they're just going to the same places everybody else goes, like some world capitals where they got an around the world ticket, which is fine. Uh, but doing something different, I think made me stood out. And then I've always kind of gone out of my way to visit the more obscure places.


Shea: Yeah, that makes sense, especially as like a blogger, as someone who shares it with other people. It's like, well, I went somewhere that you might not necessarily go or be able to go anytime soon. So that makes sense. What is your favorite place that you've ever been to? People probably ask you that all the time.


Gary: It's the number one question I get. And I'll tell you the answer I give. I don't know if it's the correct answer because I don't know if there is an answer. But the answer I always give is South Georgia Island.


Shea: Okay. 


Gary: And the reason why is you cannot fly to South Georgia. You have to take a boat there. South Georgia is located in between South America, Africa, and Antarctica. So it's in the South Atlantic, and it is a place really like no other. Usually ships that go to Antarctica from Ushuaia every year, they will do one or two stops in South Georgia, and it tends to be the highlight of the season. for everyone. And it's because it's the largest penguin breeding ground in the world, even more so than Antarctica is because there's actually land that they can, you know, hatch their eggs on. And it's pretty amazing. But what I normally do when I'm asked that question, if I'm at like a bar or a conference or something, I whip out my phone and I show people because I'm Photography is how most people knew me. And here, so I put it in the chat. You can click on it quick. This is why, this is what the image I show people.


Shea: I'm going to pull it up. Okay. Wow. That’s a lot of penguins. 


Gary: For those people listening, it's just a, an image filled with penguins. Like the, it's a, where's Waldo type image of penguins. Penguin, penguin, penguin. Absolutely. And that was one of the first scenes I saw when I got off our Zodiac. This is called Salisbury Plain, and it's just penguins. But it's also of historical note, South Georgia, if you know the story of Ernest Shackleton and the Endeavor.


Shea: A little bit. I've dabbled in that a little bit, yeah.


Gary: So I also got to go to Elephant Island in Antarctica where his men were waiting. So he took basically a rowboat, crossed the Drake Passage, went to South Georgia where there were whaling stations, got help. His men were rescued. No one died in the entire affair, which is pretty good for being stranded in Antarctica. And he was later buried in South Georgia. And you can visit his grave.


Shackleton's on my list, guys. Don't worry.


Shea: So how did you get to go to Antarctica? Because I was kind of thinking it was just like scientists that got to go there. Were you like part of…


Gary: No, there's quite a bit of tourism. I'd say there's about 20,000 people that visit a year.


Shea: Oh, my goodness. I had no idea.


Gary: There's a couple ways to do it, but the most common by far is there are ships that go from Ushuaia, Argentina, which is the southernmost city in the world. You fly down to Ushuaia from Buenos Aires. They're regular flights. And even if you didn't go to Antarctica, it's a beautiful place. You're in Patagonia. And they sail from there, and they go either directly to Antarctica. The voyage I was on, we stopped in the Falkland Islands. South Georgia Island, Antarctica, and back. And that was about a three-week trip.


Shea: Yeah. And would that be like a summertime, or I guess winter here, summer there? Right, our winter.


Gary: So I went in January


Shea: Yeah, okay, yeah, right. So that it's not winter there, though.


Gary: The season is roughly I would say, late November to early March.


Shea: Yeah


Gary: is, is the Antarctica season, but January is right in the middle of it. And depending on when you go, you're going to see different penguin breeding seasons. Um, cause they're not quite at the same time at different latitudes. So you'll, you'll see different things no matter what time of year you go.


Shea: Very cool. Very cool. So let's talk a little bit about UNESCO. I feel like I've only seen it written down. Do people actually say the acronym like that, like UNESCO or is it like UNESCO? Okay. No, it's UNESCO. I was hoping so. Okay, great. So let's talk a little bit. Do you know much about like the history of it or like how that organization came to be?


Gary: Oh yes. So the initial UNESCO was created as this cultural organization and their big claim to fame was in the late 1950s when they were building the Aswan High Dam. And the lake that would be created behind the dam was going to destroy a whole bunch of ancient Egyptian monuments, in particular Abu Simbel. And so UNESCO put together a campaign with archaeologists and engineers from around the world to save Abu Simbel. And what they did is they basically cut it up and then they reconstructed it on a hilltop not far away so it would be protected when the waters came. And It is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The UNESCO World Heritage Program was created later. So that was they had their first heritage convention in 1978. And there was, I want to say, 12 sites that were put on the initial list. So what happens is every year they get together representatives from all over the world. And there's this process that is, quite frankly, far too bureaucratic. And it's become highly politicized where countries submit bids and then they vote. And today there's like 1,300 sites on the list. And I've been to 400 around the world. And it runs the gamut from things that everyone is familiar with, Taj Mahal, the pyramids, stuff like that, to ever, and it's becoming more so, more obscure sites. places. Now, that being said, just because they're obscure doesn't mean they're bad. I went to a lot of obscure ones and a lot of them, I would say 90% of the time, it's something really cool that I'm glad I visited. 10% of the time, they're really duds and I don't understand how it ever got put on the list.


Shea: Right. Because I looked at, I kind of glanced over the list and it wasn't really what I was expecting. I wasn't expecting for there to be that many. I was kind of expecting like the classic, like you know, major sites, the pyramids and the Colosseum and Stonehenge or whatever, that sort of thing. But there was a lot on there that like I've never heard of. So I was kind of surprised to see how sort of random it was. And then there were, you know, some things that, that I thought might be on there that weren't. So you said it's like, it's pretty political. Is there like a benefit to having, I mean, I assume there's some sort of protections that go along with it or what's like the benefit of having something listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site?


Gary: Tourism


Shea: Oh yeah, right. 


Gary: That's really the biggest driving thing is that if you have a UNESCO site, it brings in more visitors. And there are some countries in particular, Spain, Italy, and China, that have a lot. They have over 50, uh, smaller countries like the Netherlands has almost as many. I think they may have, or we're very close to the United States. Uh, the United States has never made it a high priority of getting sites listed, even though the most obvious places in the U S are listed the grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, statue of Liberty, independence hall, places like that. Um, And then there's been a movement, you know, every country gets one, even though not, they're not all equal, but they try to give everyone. And then there's a central committee that does the voting. And then, you know, there's a lot of behind the scenes vote swapping. There was a very good book, uh, that was written about the process. And it's in some ways, it's almost, we've never heard of like what happens with like, uh, getting an Olympics or a FIFA world cup.


Shea: Right. 


Gary: That the process is incredibly corrupt. Yeah. It's like a micro version of that.


Shea: Okay. 


Gary: There's been reports of, you know, buying people who do the voting, you know, dinners or gifts or things like that. So, and you can, you know, I've talked to the people at some of these sites that, for example, I met the guy at Grand Prix in Halifax or outside of Halifax. It's in Nova Scotia. And this was the site of the Acadian expulsion, if you're familiar with that. That's why the Cajuns are in Louisiana. They didn't come from France. They came from Canada. And he went through the process of what they had to do. And he showed me all the books and everything. And it was, you know, I think it was at least a million dollars, if not more. And they had to do all these surveys and everything else. And then when you actually watch the proceedings that happen every year, I don't think any of that matters. It's like, you got to do all this stuff, but at the end of the day, it's just, they're going to vote on most of it.


Shea: Wow. So you have to do all that even to just get it considered?


Gary: So there's a process. Every country has to put sites on the tentative list, and they can put whatever they want on it. And then from the tentative list, that is where you can submit sites to become a World Heritage Site. And usually a country will submit no more than one per year, although there have been times where a country's gotten more than one. And then... Sometimes they do it jointly with other countries if it crosses a border, and sometimes they'll just expand a site. But basically, you have to have a tentative site, and then they have to put forward a proposal, and then there's just a lot of paperwork that they need to justify it. And this is my personal opinion. I think that of all the paperwork and everything that's done at the end of the day, it's ultimately politics.


Shea: Right. Yeah. Who is deciding, like who, who is the, they, is this like an international group or is it like who, who actually does the voting?


Gary: So there's a group called the international committee of, what was it? Icons and monuments. Uh, that's kind of a heritage prevention or preservation group. And they kind of give the recommendations, but there've been things that they've said, yeah, this should not be a world heritage site.


Shea: Yeah, I feel like you could justify anything almost, though.


Gary: Yeah it has to be, in theory, it has to be of world importance.


Shea: Right, not just to this one village.


Gary: Yeah but what does that mean, right? Was the Colosseum in Rome of importance to the people in China? No.


Shea: Right, right, yeah. 


Gary: It's well known. And so what a lot of European cities do is that the whole city is basically a UNESCO site. So all of... or a big chunk of Venice, for example, Rome, just the whole thing. Because otherwise, if they tried to make every building a separate one, it would just take forever. Like the Vatican, it's all one. And so that's kind of what they did in a lot of places. But like in London, they didn't. So there's four different sites in London. There's the Kew Gardens, Westminster, the Tower of London, and, oh, Greenwich. Where the British Navy used to be and where they had the clock that the term Greenwich Mean Time and the Greenwich, the Prime Meridian…


Shea: Right. Yes. I've been there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So it does sound very political. It seems to me that like there's a lot of like schmoozing and like money and stuff involved. Does that then make it harder to like in these poorer countries that might have really significant sites? Does that make it harder for them to get money? to get it declared because of financial reasons or just not having connections?


Gary: No, because what happens is the rich countries give money to the poor countries, so the poor countries that are on the committee will vote for the rich countries. And that's a quid pro quo.


Shea: Okay, gotcha. Interesting. So is there, I know you've been to a lot of these, is there one in particular, a similar question that I asked earlier, is there one World Heritage Site in particular that you would rank as like your favorite or the one that maybe impacted you the most or left the biggest impression on you after visiting?


Gary: So World Heritage Sites, usually there's two different types roughly. There's natural and cultural. Natural is the Grand Canyon Yellowstone type one. Cultural is Venice, Rome, things like that. Yeah. For the natural ones, one of the ones that really stuck out, and this was one of the very first ones, this was along with Yellowstone and the Galapagos, is Nahanni National Park in Canada. Almost nobody knows about it, and I talk about it on almost every interview I do, and despite talking about it, nobody ever goes there. It's in the Northwest Territories of Canada. It's kind of hard to reach, but not impossible. The park is not connected by a road, so you have to drive up you know, relatively close, and then you take a bush plane in. But it's an amazing park. Like, it's one of the greatest national parks in the world, and almost nobody knows about this place. And it gets about 800 visitors a year.


Shea: Wow. Wow. 


Gary: And just to give you an idea, and that's, you know, I would say that many people may enter popular parks like Yosemite in the summer in an hour.


Shea: Right. Yeah, absolutely. Do you think it's because it's just so remote? Yeah, it's remote. Yeah.


Gary: It's hard to get to. And this is something I've seen over and over in terms of travel. The most popular places always have a cruise terminal and a large international airport, which is why people go there. And if it involves going even a little bit further, most people won't. For example, I think the best island in the Caribbean is the island of Dominica. Dominica is a very mountainous island, so they can't put a huge airport runway in it. which means you just have to fly to a neighboring island and then take like a 15 minute flight or a ferry. There's either way you can do it. And it's not hard, but nobody does it. So they're just going to land in wherever the airport is and just go to a resort there. Uh, but Dominique is a totally different place. Barcelona. They have a huge cruise terminal. They have a huge airport. A lot of people go to Barcelona. You go 45 minutes North or South. You can see some amazing things. The, uh, Town of Tarragona, just south of Barcelona. That used to be the Roman imperial capital of the province of Iberia. And Augustus was there, and you can still see the theater. You can still see the Roman walls. It's amazing. Go north a little bit. I spent three months in the city of Girona, which was a beautiful city, and most people don't know about it or even bother to go there.


Shea: Yeah. 


Gary: Because it's right near Barcelona, and Barcelona sucks up all the oxygen.


Shea: Right. 


Gary: If you ever go to Rome, okay, and there's a lot to see in Rome, so I get it, but most people are there for two or three days. You go to the Forum, you see the Colosseum, you go to the Vatican, you go to the museum, and then maybe you stop at the Trevi Fountain, and that's Rome. You go 45 minutes outside of Rome towards inland, you have the Villa d'Est, which is this fabulous place. water garden created by this guy in the Renaissance who was a cardinal who wanted to be Pope. So he built this thing to impress everyone, never became Pope, but we get to visit it today. And then also next door to that is Hadrian's Villa, the Emperor Hadrian. This is where he lived in the, he went there in the summers when it was hot and it's a fantastic set of Roman ruins. And you can still see like his swimming pool and all of the statues that are along it. It's really cool. And nobody goes there. It was like basically empty when I was there. Well Go 45 minutes in the other direction, and this is an easy train stop. You can go to Ostia Antica. Ostia was the port city of Rome where the Tiber met the sea. And it's a really well-preserved place. But again, most people never bother to go there. And there's so many places like that all over the world that are fantastic places to go visit, but they don't get nearly as much interest because something else overshadows it.


Shea: Mm hmm. Yeah. People people don't want to put too much effort into getting there, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. So what about you said the other type was where you have the natural sort of the natural national parks and that sort of thing. And then the other type was more like human cultural sites. Do you have one of those? That's that's a favorite.


Gary: One of the ones I really like and it completely most people are surprised is the Volkingen Ironworks in Germany. It was an ironworks that closed in the 1980s. And this is early 20th century. You got the pipes and the tubes and the metal. If you've ever seen RoboCop, it's like where the final scene takes place. It's industrial, like in the hardcore iron. Like if you were to shoot a heavy metal video, you'd do it here. And it was cheaper to make it a World Heritage Site than it was to decommission it and tear it all down. And this is a very, very industrial area. You'll still see. steel factories and everything around here. And it was just very interesting because we always think of history as like ancient history or a castle or something like that. And this is something that is relatively modern to see how they produced iron in the late 19th and early 20th century. That's really well preserved. And I'm really glad they did it. And to kind of be in this really, you know, It just reeks of everything that you think of in terms of like, like steampunk. Like this is the reality of it. Then there are other great places that people are kind of unaware of. There's several places in Ethiopia that I visited. Axum. A lot of history there. They have these stelae that have been tilted over. Tikal in Guatemala, that probably has some of the best Mayan ruins that you'll see anywhere. But most people are going to Cancun, so they only see the stuff that... And I don't want to take away from a lot of those. Tulum and Chichen Itza are great sites, but Tikal is probably the greatest of them all. But it's in Guatemala, and nobody wants to go to Guatemala, so it doesn't get nearly as many visitors.


Shea: Yeah. It's probably... honestly greater for it because it's a little more undisturbed. And, you know, I feel like those ruins kind of take a toll from having all those people, you know, even if you're not supposed to touch it or whatever, it's just like all those people traipsing through there all the time has to take its toll on those ruins. So then the other side of that, has there been a site that you visited that you were like underwhelmed or disappointed by?


Gary: Oh yes. I remember this one in Croatia. called, was it Starry? I got my list in front of me. Starry Grodd. And the claim to fame was, oh, it showed how to lay out a farming area. And you get there and it's just a field.


Shea: Ok, what? 


Gary: Okay. I don't, I don't. All right. Maybe this is significant. Okay. I don't know why. And there's a lot in, in some parts of Europe where you go and it's just like, it's a village and it's like, okay, even if everything that is said is true on the world heritage description, this probably shouldn't be a world heritage site.


Shea: Right. I can think of some other things that might do better. Yeah. I'm sure it probably matters like how well it's done. Like, do they have plaques with information or do they, you know, are they explaining things or is it just a field? Like, do you find that some are better done or like set up better than others?


Gary: Oh, absolutely. And it depends on the amount of money that the country has to put into it and the local community, which is why if you go to sites in like Africa, they're not as well developed because they don't have as much money to invest in it. And they also don't have as many World Heritage Sites as a result. Whereas if you go to Europe, they're really into it. And you'll see some that are really well developed.


Shea: Yeah. Why do you think the U.S. doesn't pursue it as much as like Europe? Do you think there's some reason why we're not as gung-ho?


Gary: There's been political things. The United States has been in and out of UNESCO several times over the last several decades. Yeah. And I, I just, it, it doesn't have the same saying something as a world heritage site. Doesn't just, I don't think Americans really know or care. Whereas if you say it's a national park and the United States has great national parks, to be completely honest, we probably have the best park system in the world. Um, so that probably has more, and I should also say, say The same thing happens in the U.S. with national parks. There are things that are occasionally, there are new park service sites that are added. So I think there's 63 national parks of that designation right now, but there's 413 20-something odd sites in the entire national park system. And a lot of those are much smaller. They're just obscure historical sites. And it's some congressman somewhere who wants to get his, you know, something for their district. And that's kind of the way it happens. In fact, I've been pushing that to happen in my community. The first hydroelectric plant station in the world and the first house ever wired for electricity and the first mill ever run on electricity are all in my community. I’m like, oh wow this is important. Electricity is big, but they just don't seem interested in getting it as a National Park Service site.


Shea: Interesting. That I think could be a


Gary: World Heritage site.


Shea: Oh, that's what I was going to say. Try to get it on the list.


Gary: That would take a decade tops, assuming everything went well.


Shea: Right, right. Yeah. So do they offer, I mean, it kind of sounds like a, almost like a popularity contest, right? Like this is a way to get people to visit your place, but does it offer, like, do these sites ever come under threat of like destruction, whether it's like, you know, through development or natural disasters? And is there, does UNESCO like step up or do anything to kind of provide protections?


Gary: They will occasionally put a list or a site on a threatened list. And there have been, cases that I know of, I don't know if it's happened recently, where a site was delisted. So there was an Oryx sanctuary in Oman that was delisted because the government didn't want to protect it because they found oil or something. And then I want to say there was a site in Georgia that may have been delisted. No, no, no, no, no. It was in Germany. I'm sorry. It was Dresden. And It was because they were going to build a bridge. And they're like, oh, no, you can't. It was outside of Dresden. It was the valley. And they're like, no, you cannot build this bridge, even though the bridge had been planned for decades. And they had these ugly, because it was in East Germany, and these ugly communist era bridges. It's like, well, we want to build this bridge because our community really needs it. And they took a vote and they're like, no, we want the bridge. You can have your World Heritage Site.


Shea: Wow. Oh, man. So they're like protected unless they really need it.


Gary: And then quite frankly, I was with the people of Dresden on this. I visited the Right. But they had to delist it. 


Shea: Yeah. I mean, I guess it's nice to have, for a lot of those sites to have it as like, okay, we have a little bit of like backup here, right? We have some protection through UNESCO, but it does seem like if like the reason's good enough, they'll kind of just delist you. I don't know how well protected they really are.


Gary: Well, you have, in all fairness, it's the examples where it was with the exception of the Germany one, the one in Oman was pretty egregious. So, and it hasn't happened very often, but yeah, it can happen.


Shea: Yeah. Wow. So what, is there a site on your list that you're looking at visiting next? Which, which UNESCO site is, is sort of up next for you?


Gary: Oh man. 


Shea: Do you have an actual list?


Gary: Yes, I do. I'd have to, I'd have to take a look. It all depends. Usually I first determine where I'm going to go and then I determine what UNESCO sites are there. So, I've been to, I've been like, if you look at the UN list of countries, I've been to 130 countries, but there's a couple low hanging fruit ones I haven't been to. So I haven't been to Jamaica. I haven't been to Peru. So I've never been to Machu Picchu. So that would be very, very high on the list. That's like a wonder of the world type place. And, um, I can easily do it. I just haven't done it.


Shea: Yeah, that is, yeah, that's, that's gotta be a big one. So is that next for you? Do you think?


Gary: I don't know. Honestly, my podcast takes up all my time now because it’s a daily show. Having a daily podcast is not the worst thing in the world.


Shea: Exactly. And if you enjoy doing it, then it doesn't even feel like work, which I know I do enjoy mine. So, yeah.


I was so honored to speak with Gary this week to learn a little bit more about our world and what UNESCO is doing to preserve it. Gary has his own podcast that I think you guys would be really interested in. So I'll let him explain how you can find him.


Gary: My podcast is Everything Everywhere Daily, and every day you'll learn something brand new. A lot of the topics are history, but I also cover some math, science, geography, and things like that. There's usually a historical element to everything, and you can listen to it wherever you're listening right now.


And hopefully this episode has inspired you to see more of the world in whatever capacity you're able to.


Gary: You know, I always encourage people that you could do a lot worse than just going to visit UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Like I said, 90% of the ones I visited were worth the visit and maybe 10% were kind of duds. So I think your odds are pretty good. And it takes you to places other than the obvious ones that you might not have otherwise visited.


Off the beaten path, just like History Fix. You know a big goal of this show is to shed light on lesser known stories, the stories that have been forgotten or misconstrued and so I really related to Gary’s desire to get off the beaten path, to visit the places that may have been forgotten or overlooked. He talked about how most people just fly into a major airport and sort of drop their suitcases and say “alright, we’re here.” But if they were to venture the littlest bit off that beaten path, untold wonders await them. And I’m thankful that UNESCO exists to help put those lesser known places on the map, to fix that. 


Thank you all so very much for listening to History Fix, I hope you found this story interesting and maybe you even learned something new. And a huge thank you to Gary Arndt host of the Everything Everywhere Daily podcast. You can join him daily wherever you listen to podcasts. I’ll also link his show in the description. Be sure to follow my instagram @historyfixpodcast to see some images that go along with this episode and to stay on top of new episodes as they drop. I’d also really appreciate it if you’d rate and follow History Fix on whatever app you’re using to listen, and help me spread the word by telling a few friends about it. That’ll make it much easier to get your next fix. 


Information used in this episode was sourced from Gary’s blog called Everything Everywhere, JSTOR Daily, UNESCO.org, National Geographic, and Wikipedia. As always, links to these sources can be found in the show notes.