The Hoysala temples in Beluru and Halebeedu in Hassan district and Somanathapura in Mysuru district have been finalized by the Union Ministry of Culture and Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) as India’s nominations to the list of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites in the world, for the year of 2022-23. G Kishan Reddy, Union Minister of Culture, Tourism and Development of North Eastern Region on Monday took to Twitter to announce the news.
“The most exquisite Hoysala Temples of Beluru, Halebeedu & Somanathapura in Karnataka have been finalised as India’s nomination for consideration as World Heritage for the year 2022-2023. The 'Sacred Ensembles of the Hoysala' are on the UNESCO’s Tentative list since 15th April 2014”, the Minister said. “These temples represent one of the highest points of human creative genius and stand testimony to the rich historical and cultural heritage of our country”, he added.
The state government will look after the maintenance and conservation of other monuments around the 3 temples. The project of getting the temples the esteemed tags has been in the works for the last three years. “We had prepared the dossier earlier only. We had submitted the dossier last year too, but this year it got finalized for the nomination,” Poornima BR, Commissioner, State Department of Archaeology, Museums and Heritage told DH.
She added that a team from UNESCO will soon visit the sites and conduct an inspection. After the inspection, it will be decided whether the monuments can be declared as heritage sites. If the Hoysala temples attain this status, these monuments will be fourth on the state’s list of World Heritage Sites. The other three include the Hampi Monuments of Vijayanagara, Pattadakallu Temples complex of the Chalukyan era and the Western Ghats.
What is a World Heritage Site?
A world heritage site can be either cultural or natural areas or objects which are inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List for having “outstanding universal value”. These sites are usually considered to have cultural significance to all the people in the world, including generations to com
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