Het Muiderslot: gone . De Beemster: gone. The Kinderdijk windmills: road. If the sea level rises too far due to climate change, that is not only bad news for the people who live in the western part of the Netherlands. The heritage in this delta could also disappear underwater. Professor Thijs Weststeijn wrote a book about it.


As the wooden poles under Amsterdam begin to rot, the water level rises in Venice and the 4,500-year-old ruins of Mohenjo Daro flood in Pakistan. Due to the collapse of the English peatland, Hadrian's Wall collapses. Due to the increase in salt, the bricks of excavated Babylon explode. Melting permafrost in Siberia undermines the ancient burial mounds of the Scythian civilization. In the US, hurricanes wiped out part of the heritage of New Orleans and Puerto Rico, while the 2019 wildfires forced the Getty Museum in Los Angeles to close.

The climate crisis is threatening historical heritage around the world, with higher temperatures, more storms and fires and, of course, the washing water. Monuments, buildings, inner cities and cultural landscapes are at risk, and museums like the Louvre have already started moving parts of their collections to climate-proof depots. The Future of the Past provides an overview of this urgent topic for the first time and suggests solutions. Special attention is paid to the Netherlands, where heritage has been closely linked to the natural environment since the seventeenth century. In addition, due to the rise in sea levels, there is a lot at stake.

Climate change means dealing with history in new ways. Historical heritage no longer only confronts us with the past, but also with the future.

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