Cultural heritage

Newly elected Miss Lebanon Perla Harb poses on stage after winning the Miss Lebanon 2025 pageant, in Zouk Mosbeh, north of Beirut, on Oct. 4, 2025.

Culture

Miss Lebanon 2025 crowned in ceremony highlighting culture, heritage

Lebanon crowned Perla Harb as the country’s new beauty queen in a grand ceremony highlighting Lebanese culture.

Khaled El-Enany, Egyptologist and former Minister of Tourism and Antiquities of Egypt, speaks during an interview with AFP at a hotel in Paris on April 10, 2025.

Culture

UNESCO backs Egypt's Khaled el-Enany as next director-general, first Arab in post

Enany would be the first Egyptian and the first Arab to serve as the agency’s director-general.

Installation view of CONVERGE in Seven Contours, One Collection at MACAAL © Ayoub El Bardii.

Culture

Marrakech's African Contemporary Art Museum reinvents itself two years after quake

Marking the two-year anniversary of the 2023 earthquake, Marrakech’s Museum of African Contemporary Art highlights the city’s recovery and its growing role as a hub for African art.

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Culture

Saudi excavations reveal 11,000-year-old human settlement

The settlement dates to between 11,000 and 10,300 years ago, to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period.

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Culture

Damascus hotel to get revamp in Syria-Saudi partnership: What we know

Sheraton

Culture

3,000-year-old gold bracelet vanishes from Egypt museum: What we know

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Armenia's Pashinyan drops Mount Ararat from border stamps in 'concession' to Turkey

A beekeeper walks by his beehives set in a valley in the Armenian province of Kotayk, with Mount Ararat seen in the background, on May 15, 2019.

Culture

From the depths: Egypt raises archaeological relics from sunken city

Divers watch as a crane pulls an artifact from the waters at Abu Qir bay in Alexandria on Aug. 21, 2025, as part of an event organized by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities to recover sunken antiquities.

Hatay Archaeological Museum after the earthquake.

One year after earthquake, Turkey's ancient Antioch still devastated

Scars of the quake that killed 53,000 people and displaced millions run deep, and the road to restoration is fraught with political bickering.

Orthodox worshippers attend a Christmas mass at the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, Jan. 7, 2024.

Culture

Gaza 100 days: Palestinian heritage, churches, mosques decimated by Israeli strikes

Hundreds of heritage and other historical landmarks have been damaged in the ongoing Israeli offensive on Gaza.

A model wearing clothing from Shahira Mehrez's collection.

Culture

'Costumes of Egypt: Lost Legacies': An author's bid to save forgotten identities

Art expert Shahira Mehrez talks about her quest to recollect and preserve the Egyptian women’s traditional costumes.

A ritual of hope: Exploring Istanbul's 'First Day of the Month Church'

On the first day of 2024, hundreds from different faiths, including Muslims, flock to a famous Istanbul church, engaging in ancient rituals that transform New Year's aspirations into realities.

A relief from the foot of the golden sarcophagus of the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun (r. 1342–1325 BC) in the restoration lab of the new Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), Giza, Sept. 21, 2019.

Culture

Despite regional tension, Egypt's Grand Museum readies to open

The partially opened Grand Egyptian Museum is enticing visitors with the treasures of Tutankhamun, the “Golden King,” as work continues to complete the complex.

A woman sits with her German shepherd at the Barking Lot cafe in Saudi Arabia.

Culture

In cultural shift, Saudi Arabia allows pets on public transportation

Pet owners can now bring their pets onto buses, boats and trains in the kingdom, but only under certain conditions.

hammam ceiling

Turkey's 500-year-old hammam unveils Istanbul's Ottoman secrets

The 16th-century Zeyrek Cinili Hammam, commissioned by corsair-turned-admiral Barbarossa and built by imperial architect Sinan, has found second life after surviving fires, earthquakes and suspicious sultans who feared hammams could be hotbeds of rebellion.

An undated image of the ancient city of Gordion.

Turkey’s new UNESCO sites: City of King Midas, wooden mosques

Among the sites awarded the “world heritage” designation is the ancient city of Gordion, which was once ruled by Midas — the king with the golden touch.

Saudi UNESCO

Analysis

Saudi Arabia hosts first UNESCO session amid massive tourism drive

Recognition of more sites by the global heritage organization may help the kingdom reach its goals of more jobs and revenue from tourism.

By Salim A. Essaid

AAMIR QURESHI/AFP via Getty Images

Arab moviegoers wait to see 'Barbie' as UAE, Saudi screenings loom

The summer box office hit is maintaining its delayed premier date of Aug. 31 in the UAE, Al-Monitor confirmed with Vox Cinemas.

United Arab Emirates

UNESCO D-G Audrey Azoulay and Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen

Israel says Saudi Arabia to allow it to attend Riyadh UNESCO event

UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay told Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen that the Saudis signed this week a hosting agreement for the 45th World Heritage Committee that should enable the participation of Israeli representatives.

ALAIN JOCARD/AFP via Getty Images

Breaking | Last Updated: July 2, 2023, 3:04 am

US return to UNESCO leaves Israel in awkward spot

After member states of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization agreed to take the United States back into the agency's fold, Israel is finding itself on its own.