No one, really, to pay respect to those first iconic monuments and landscapes except conservationists and wealthy but intrepid travelers.
How things have changed.
Last year UNESCO named its 1,000th World Heritage Site.
Today you can hardly move at many of them for selfie fans trying to capture their next prize monument.
But if you’re interested in fascinating and sometimes bizarre history, these 10 World Heritage Sites are worth your attention. And maybe a trip.
They’re not necessarily the prettiest or the most famous, but they’ll certainly grant you a passport back in time.
Potosi (Bolivia)
When Indian Diego Gualpa stumbled upon Cerro Rico (Mount of Riches) in 1545 and found silver ore in the rocks beneath him, the Bolivian town of Potosi had 3,000 inhabitants.
Just 65 years later the population had swelled to 160,000, most of them immigrants.
The city had grown fat on the backs of its conscripted indigenous workers (mitayos), who suffered greatly.
Some 13,500 a year disappeared into the bowels of the silver mountain.
When the miyatos resisted, thousands of African slaves were shipped across the Atlantic to fill the gap, working 40-day shifts in pitch darkness.
An estimated 62,000 tons of silver were mined over the next 300 years at the cost of more than a million lives, making Potosi one of the richest and most tainted cities in the world.
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The buffalo remains go deeper — 12 meters of bone deposits line the base — evidence of a unique hunting practice carried out over 6,000 years by the indigenous Blackfoot tribe.
Blackfoot buffalo runners would dress in wolf skins to frighten herds toward a precipice.
The weight of numbers forced the animals to jump and break their legs at the bottom, where they were easily dispatched and carved up for food.
According to legend a young Blackfoot hunter wanted to watch the falling Buffalo from the foot of the cliff but his curiosity was crushed by the weight of dozens of animals landing on top of him, causing his head to cave in and giving the place its name.
Located outside of the town of Fort Macleod, the site was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage roster in 1981.
Today, visitors will find an interpretive center, remains of marked trails, an aboriginal camp and plenty of buffalo skeletons.
Agra Fort (India)
The vast fort at Agra was the seat of power for the Mughal emperor Akbar “the great,” who justified his name by extending his empire over most of the Indian subcontinent, marrying a Hindu (the Mughals were Muslims) and promoting religious tolerance.
Akbar employed 4,000 men to renovate the existing fortifications in 1558, transforming it over the next eight years into a leviathan of red sandstone.
Today this crumbling citadel, replete with intricate marble palaces, is often overlooked as a footnote in the tale of its more illustrious neighbor, the Taj Mahal.
Shah Jahan, Akbar’s grandson, famously built the Taj as a memorial to his beloved wife, who died in childbirth.
But toward the end of his life he was imprisoned in the fort by his ruthless son Aurangzeb — fated to watch over his wife’s tomb until finally, he too was interred there.
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