Brief synthesis
The Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin (Sanssouci) represent a self-contained ensemble of architecture and landscape gardening in the 18th and 19th centuries. This ensemble, having an outstanding artistic rank, has its origin in the work of the most significant architects and landscape gardeners of their time in Northern Germany - G.W. von Knobelsdorff (1699-1753), C. von Gontard (1731-1791), C.G. Langhans (1732-1808), K.F. Schinkel (1781-1841), P.J. Lenné (1789-1866) and their co-operators. Together with highly imaginative sculptors, painters, craftsmen, building workers, and gardeners, they created Sanssouci, the New Garden, the Park of Babelsberg, and other grounds in the surrounding area of Potsdam as an overall work of art of high quality, European rank, and international standing.
The World Heritage property enfolds the Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin including buildings, parks, and designed spaces, which are intuitively, territorially and historically aligned with Sacrow Castle and Park and the Sauveur Church.
The cultural landscape with its parks and buildings was designed and constructed between 1730 and 1916 in a beautiful region of rivers, lakes, and hills. The underlying concept of Potsdam was carried out according to Peter Joseph Lenné’s plans, which he designed after the mid-1800s, to transform the Havel landscape into the cultural landscape it is today. These designs still determine the layout of Potsdam’s cultural landscape. The ensemble of parks of Potsdam is a cultural property of exceptional quality. It forms an artistic whole, whose eclectic nature reinforces its sense of uniqueness.
In Potsdam, the World Heritage property includes Sanssouci Park, the Lindenallee Avenue west of the New Palace, the Former Gardener’s Training School, former Railway Station of the Emperor and its environs, Lindstedt Palace and its low-lying surroundings, the Seekoppel paddock, the Avenue to Sanssouci, the Voltaireweg Avenue as a connection between Sanssouci Park and the New Garden, the New Garden, the so-called Mirbach Wäldchen Grove and the link between Pfingstberg Hill and the New Garden, the Villa Henkel with Garden, Pfingstberg Hill, the garden at the Villa Alexander, Babelsberg Park, the approaches to Babelsberg Park, the Babelsberg Observatory, Sacrow Park, the Royal Forest around the village of Sacrow, and the Russian colony Alexandrowka with the Kapellenberg, the artificial Italian village of Bornstedt and the artificial Swiss village in Klein-Glienicke. In Berlin, it includes Glienicke Park, Böttcherberg Hill with the Loggia Alexandra, the Glienicke Hunting Lodge, and the Peacock Island (including all buildings).
With 500 ha of parks and 150 buildings constructed between 1730 and 1916, Potsdam's complex of palaces and parks forms an artistic whole, whose eclectic nature reinforces its sense of uniqueness. It extends into the district of Berlin-Zehlendorf, with the palaces and parks lining the banks of the River Havel and Lake Glienicke. Voltaire stayed at the Sans-Souci Palace, built under Frederick II between 1745 and 1747.
Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0
Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin
Messel Pit Fossil Site
Messel Pit is the richest site in the world for understanding the living environment of the Eocene, between 57 million and 36 million years ago. In particular, it provides unique information about the early stages of the evolution of mammals and includes exceptionally well-preserved mammal fossils, ranging from fully articulated skeletons to the contents of stomachs of animals of this period.
Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0
Brief synthesis
Messel Pit provides the single best fossil site which contributes to the understanding of evolution and past environments during the Palaeogene, a period which saw the emergence of the first modern mammals. The property includes a detailed geological record of middle Eocene age, dating from 47-48 million years ago. It provides unique information about the early stages of the evolution of mammals and is exceptional in the quality of preservation, quantity and diversity of fossils of over 1000 species of plants and animals, ranging from fully articulated skeletons to feathers, skin, hair and stomach contents. Located in the German Land of Hesse, this area of just 42 ha conserves a rich fossiliferous bed of oil shale some 190 m thick. Discovered through mining activities, the area has now been preserved and has been the subject of important paleontological research, which has greatly contributed to our knowledge of evolutionary history. Significant scientific discoveries include studies of the evolution of echolocation in exceptionally well-preserved fossil bats and vital new data on the evolution of primates, birds and insects.
Criterion (vii): Messel Pit Fossil Site is considered to be the single best site which contributes to the understanding of the Eocene, when mammals became firmly established in all principal land ecosystems. The state of preservation of its fossils is exceptional and allows for high-quality scientific work.
Integrity
As the Messel Pit is the former site of an oil shale mine, the land surface has been significantly disturbed. Paradoxically, if there had been no mine, the scientific values of the property would have never been discovered. Once mining was discontinued in the late 1960’s, the site was opened to private prospection and even proposed as a refuse dump in 1971, a threat that led to increased scientific prospection and public concern. This culminated in the purchase of the pit by the government and its full protection as a cultural monument. The extraordinary state of conservation of the property’s fossils, which allows for the reconstruction of the morphology of the preserved fauna and flora as well as that of their environment, and the serious commitment by government for its long-term maintenance as a site of scientific importance, means that the conditions of integrity for the property are fully met. Although much material has been taken from the site - approximately 20 million tonnes of rock in a century of mining activities - the volume of fossil-bearing oil shale sediments is still massive and far from depleted.
