The INAH (Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia – The Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History) has announced that Mexico has had two new sites entered into the UNESCO World Heritage List, both being accepted into the list this past August 1st in the 34th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee which took place in Brasilia, Brazil from July 25th through August 3rd, 2010. With these two sites, Mexico achieves the distinction of becoming the Latin American country with the most UNESCO World Heritage sites.
The first of these sites is actually a Cultural Route, the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, or Inland Royal Road. The Camino Real de Tierra Adentro was a 2,900 trade route connecting Mexico City to Texas and New Mexico dating from the time of the Spanish colonialists who developed the route largely as a transport line for the silver coming out of Mexican mines in Guanajuato, San Luis Potosi and Zacatecas, and mercury being brought in from Europe for the mining processes between the 16th and the 19th centuries. Once laid out, the route also became an important religious and cultural link during the colonization era. A 1,400 kilometer section of the route has been inscribed into the World Heritage Sites list, consisting of 55 sites and 5 existing World Heritage sites.
Some of the sites along the route that lead northward starting from are the historic center of Mexico City (inscribed 1987) are the ex-college of San Francisco Javier in Tepotzotlán, state of Mexico; the ex-convent of San Francisco and bridge in Tepeji del Río, Hidalgo; the ex-hacienda of Chichimequillas, Queretaro.; the protective town of San Miguel and Sanctuary of Jesus Nazareno de Atotonilco, Guanajuato (inscribed 2008); the ex-hacienda of Cienega de Mata, Jalisco; the ex-hacienda of Pabellón de Hidalgo, Aguascalientes; the Chapel of San Nicolas Tolentino at the ex-hacienda of San Nicolas de Quijas in Zacatecas; the Chapel of the Refugio at the ex-hacienda of Cuatillos, Durango and the town of Valle de Allende in Chihuahua.
The second site inscribed into the UNESCO World Heritage Site list comprises the Prehistoric Caves of Yagul and Mitla in the Central Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. These are listed as a Cultural Landscape and include the Guila Naquitz Cave in which what are considered some of the earliest indications of plant domestication, and the oldest documented evidence of the domestication of maize, were found: 10,000-year-old Cucurbitaceae seeds and fragments of corn cobs. The caves and primitive rock art of the area also point to the transition from a hunter-gatherer to a more agricultural society which allowed for the emergence and development of subsequent Mesoamerican civilizations.
See: INAH – Two Mexican Sites Inscribed in UNESCO World Heritage List
