Aid for endangered heritage
Germany has been supporting the worldwide preservation and protection of cultural monuments since 1981.
The stone dancers at Angkor Wat are beautiful. Hundreds of them embellish the temple in the Cambodian jungle. Yet like many cultural monuments the divine female figures, called “apsaras” by the Khmer people, are suffering from decay. Stopping it requires patience. In 1981, Germany began supporting the conservation of cultural heritage abroad, and in the following 30 years the Federal Foreign Office made available 52.3 million euros for its Cultural Preservation Programme.
The commitment to Angkor Wat is one of the bigger projects. Supervised by experts from Cologne University of Applied Sciences, international and local helpers are working together on the German Apsara Conservation Project. There is also a spirit of partnership in Cameroon, where specialists are digitalizing the national radio station’s archive in order to safeguard rare musical heirlooms. In Myanmar the Federal Foreign Office has financed lead-glass windows that are true to the original for the historical St. Mary’s Cathedral.
