List of destroyed heritage


This is a list of cultural heritage sites that have been damaged or destroyed accidentally, deliberately, or by a natural disaster, sorted by country.
Cultural heritage can be subdivided into two main types—tangible and intangible heritage. The former includes built heritage such as religious buildings, museums, monuments, and archaeological sites, as well as movable heritage such as works of art and manuscripts. Intangible cultural heritage includes customs, music, fashion and other traditions within a particular culture. This article mainly deals with the destruction of built heritage; the destruction of movable collectible heritage is dealt with in art destruction, whilst the destruction of movable industrial heritage remains almost totally ignored.
Deliberate and systematic destruction of cultural heritage, such as that carried out by ISIL and other terrorist organizations, is regarded as a form of cultural genocide.

Afghanistan

During the Yugoslavia period there was destruction of Albanian heritage endorsed by the state. Numerous Albanian cultural sites in Kosovo were destroyed during the Kosovo conflict which constituted a war crime violating the Hague and Geneva Conventions. In all 225 out of 600 mosques in Kosovo were damaged, vandalised, or destroyed alongside other Islamic architecture and Islamic libraries and archives with records spanning 500 years. Additionally 500 Albanian owned kulla dwellings and three out of four well preserved Ottoman period urban centres located in Kosovo cities were badly damaged resulting in great loss of traditional architecture. Kosovo's public libraries, in particular 65 out of 183 were completely destroyed with a loss of 900,588 volumes. During the war, Islamic architectural heritage posed for Yugoslav Serb paramilitary and military forces as Albanian patrimony with destruction of non-Serbian architectural heritage being a methodical and planned component of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
During World War II, many Serbian Orthodox religious sites were damaged or destroyed. During the 1968 and 1981 protests, Serbian Orthodox religious sites were the target of vandalism, that continued during the 1980s. NATO bombing in March–June 1999 resulted in some accidental damages to churches and a mosque. Revenge attacks against Serbian religious sites commenced following the conflict and the return of hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanian refugees to their homes. Serbian cultural sites in Kosovo were systematically destroyed in the aftermath of the Kosovo War and 2004 ethnic violence. According to the International Center for Transitional Justice this includes 155 destroyed Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries as well as Medieval Monuments in Kosovo, which were inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger.

Libya