Biblical-era archaeological remains, the Chinese island of Macau and a war-ravaged Bosnian bridge were among 17 cultural sites added to the U.N.'s World Heritage list this week, Reuters reported. UNESCO, the U.N. environmental and cultural body, also added a Belgian renaissance printing house, archaeological findings in Bahrain dating from 2300 BC, the Albanian Ottoman town of Gjirokastra, and Greek and Roman era tombs in Italy. The new sites, added at a meeting of UNESCO's World Heritage committee in South Africa's port city of Durban, brings the global list of cultural sites to 628. Bosnia-Herzegovina grabbed a spot on the list for the first time with its historic town of Mostar, built as an Ottoman frontier town and revamped during the 19th and 20th century. The town's Old Bridge -- which includes pre-Ottoman, eastern Ottoman, Mediterranean and western European features -- was destroyed in the Balkans war in the 1990s but recently rebuilt. "The reconstructed site is a symbol of reconciliation, international cooperation and of the coexistence of diverse cultural, ethnic and religious communities," UNESCO said. Also added to the list were prehistoric settlement mounds in Israel containing substantial remains of cities with biblical connections, as well as Iron Age water collecting systems, the committee said in a statement. --mor 1458 Local Time 1158 GMT
