Monument Conservation in Nepal

In the Kathmandu Valley, countless religious and secular ancient site of Hadigaon have shown that early buildings were constructed of baked bricks and timber, using mud mortar. As the Kathmandu Valley - indeed, the entire country of Nepal - lies in an active seismic zone, frequent earthquakes have damaged these monuments, to varying degrees. In times when there were fewer structures and less damage, monuments were easily restored. But during the Malla period in the 16th and 17th-centuries, so many edifices were built that the Valley became known as the home of temples and monuments, Ancient inscriptions have recorded many occasions of monument construction and restoration, but rarely mention the details of such repairs and restoration work. Therefore, very little is known about approaches to and techniques of maintenance and renewal of temples and houses in historic times. (Theophile and Gutschow, 2003, p.11).

From the late 18th-century, the Shah rulers and their collaterals (Thapas, Ranas, Basnets, Pandes and others) carried out considerable construction works in the Valley, but they failed to pay proper attention to maintaining the ancient monuments of earlier dynasties. H. Ambrose Oldfield, who was in Nepal during the time of Prime Minister Jung Bahadur Rana (1846-77), noted: 'It is quite different with the Gorkha Government.

Monument Conservation in Nepal: My Experience with the World Heritage Sites of the Kathmandu Valley.
Author: Dr. Shaphalya Amatya

ISBN 9789937506014

Weight: 29 grams