GUWAHATI: Assam’s 700-year-old moidams, the burial sites of the Ahom dynasty in Charaideo, will be considered for nomination on the World Heritage List during the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee (WHC) in New Delhi next week.
The 46th session of the World Heritage Committee, which is being held in India for the first time, will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The event will be held at Bharat Mandapam from July 21 to 31.
If nominated, the 90 pyramid-like shape royal burials at Charaideo will be the region’s first cultural site on the prestigious list from the northeastern region.
The nomination dossier for the Moidams was sent more than a decade ago and is presently on the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
In July, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (Icomos), Unesco’s advisory council, recommended the inclusion of the ‘moidams’ in the heritage list in its report titled “Evaluations of Nominations of Cultural and Mixed Properties acknowledging the Tai-Ahom’s 600-year tradition at Charaideo.
The report said, “The Charaideo Moidam site spreads across an area of 95.02 hectares, and a buffer zone of 754.511 hect and a buffer zone of 754.511 hectares, which is an exceptional example of a Tai-Ahom necropolis that represents in a tangible way their funerary traditions and associated cosmologies.”
During the session, the committee will also discuss the state of conservation of the 124 sites already inscribed on the World Heritage List, 57 of which are also on the list of World Heritage in Danger.
The session will review 27 nominations from various countries, including 19 cultural, 4 natural, and 2 mixed sites.
The number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in India grew to 42 with the ‘Sacred Ensembles of the Hoysala’ finding a place in the coveted list last September.
