Taxila (World Heritage Property No. 139)

State of Conservation and Issues Requiring Immediate Decision by the Federal and Provincial Governments

Pakistan World Heritage Initiative (PWHI) — Working Edition, 23 July 2026

Standing and interest. PWHI is an independent civil-society initiative documenting and defending Pakistan's cultural heritage. It is not a government platform, is not affiliated with the Department of Archaeology & Museums, the Ministry of National Heritage & Culture, or UNESCO, and is not a party to UNESCO proceedings. It writes because the World Heritage Convention makes the heritage of each State Party the concern of all humanity, and because the decisions this report identifies are time-bound while the 48th session of the World Heritage Committee sits in Busan (19–29 July 2026).

Scope and limits. This report identifies decisions, not culprits. It is not legal advice. It asserts nothing beyond its sources, and marks every material claim: [V] verified against a primary or reputable secondary source · [R] reported but not yet primary-verified · [TV] to be verified. Nothing marked [TV] should be relied on in a court-facing or government-facing version until verified; this Working Edition carries those markings openly.

Method and sources. Documentary review of the UNESCO public record for property No. 139 (decisions, State of Conservation reports, the October 2000 Reactive Monitoring mission), the Taxila 2055 Archaeological Master Plan (Urban Unit, Government of the Punjab, 2025), the Antiquities Act 1975 (extracted text), Pakistani press reporting (principally Dawn), and PWHI's analysis of the ~6,200-record national heritage inventory. Contested points carry the State Party's position in its own terms.

Glossary. OUV — Outstanding Universal Value · SOC — State of Conservation · HIA — Heritage Impact Assessment · OG — Operational Guidelines (WHC.25/01, 16 July 2025) · Danger List — List of World Heritage in Danger (Convention Art. 11(4)) · Reactive Monitoring — reporting/mission mechanism on threatened properties · State Party — Pakistan.

Suggested citation: PWHI, Taxila: State of Conservation and Issues Requiring Immediate Decision (Working Edition, 23 July 2026), pwhi.digital/taxila-watch.

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Part 0 — Executive summary and decision register

In 2025–26, conservation works at two components of the Taxila World Heritage property — the Mohra Moradu monastery and the Sirkap city remains — were reported to involve modern cement mortar and rebuilding of wall sections in new material [R]. A member of the public reported the works to Pakistan's Permanent Delegate to UNESCO in March 2026 [V]; a joint technical mission visited on 12 June 2026 [V]; in early July 2026 the World Heritage Centre sought the full documentary record and warned that the property could face the List of World Heritage in Danger [V]. The Punjab archaeology department maintains the works are stabilisation, not reconstruction [V — its position, accurately stated].

The dispute is evidential, not rhetorical. The Operational Guidelines required a sequence — assess (para 118bis), notify (para 172), then act — before any decision "difficult to reverse." Either the documents exist and their publication ends the matter, or they do not and the failure is established by their absence. There is no third position.

Pakistan has already run this play and won: when a football stadium was built on the unexcavated Bhir Mound (1999), the Committee weighed danger-listing; Pakistan demolished the stadium; the Committee recorded its appreciation (2000) [V — decisions 23 COM X.B.43, 24 BUR IV.B.72, 24 COM VIII.33]. And at Makli (2019), danger-listing consideration was postponed expressly because the State Party was visibly acting [V]. Conduct arrests escalation. That is the entire strategic case.

The single sentence test. If the Government does only one thing this month, it should be: publish the five documents UNESCO has requested — or state plainly which of them do not exist, and commission them.

The decision register (full reasoning in Parts VII–VIII)

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Part I — The property and what is actually at stake (status: [V])

1.1 Inscription. Taxila was inscribed on the World Heritage List at the Committee's 4th session, September 1980 (decision 4 COM V.12), property No. 139, under criteria (iii) and (vi) [V — decision record].

1.2 The serial character. The property is a serial inscription of 18 component sites across Rawalpindi district (Punjab) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: the Khanpur Mesolithic cave; the early settlement sites of Saraikala, Bhir Mound, Sirkap and Sirsukh; and the Buddhist monastic and temple complexes including Dharmarajika, Jaulian, Mohra Moradu, Jandial, Kalawan, Giri (which also holds a medieval mosque and madrassa), Kunala, Pippala and Bhallar [V — UNESCO property record].

1.3 Why Mohra Moradu and Sirkap matter specifically. Mohra Moradu is among the best-preserved Gandharan monastic complexes — stupa, monastery and votive stupas substantially legible. Sirkap is the fortified city of the mid-2nd century BCE whose orthogonal Hellenistic grid is the physical evidence of the Greek–Persian–South Asian synthesis for which Taxila carries criterion (iii). Interventions in modern material at precisely these two components strike the attributes that justify the inscription [V property record; characterisation PWHI's own].

1.4 The Statement of OUV and its attributes. The retrospective Statement of Outstanding Universal Value was adopted in 2013 (37 COM 8E) [V]. The attributes that carry OUV here are authenticity of fabric, form, materials and workmanship — exactly the attributes an undocumented intervention in incompatible modern material can extinguish.

1.5 What OUV means legally. OUV is the yardstick against which every intervention is measured, and the thing the State Party undertook in 1980 to transmit intact. It is not a tourism designation; it is the subject-matter of a treaty obligation (Convention Art. 4).

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Part II — Chronology: how the present situation arose (status: [V] unless marked)

• 1980 — Inscription (4 COM V.12). [V]
• 1995 — March 1995 mission and Bureau review (19 BUR VI.22): unclear nomination file; vegetation damage; industrial estates; limestone blasting near Jaulian, Dharmarajika and Bhir. SOC 1995. [V]
• 1999 — The Bhir Mound stadium episode. A football stadium is built on the unexcavated Bhir Mound; the Bureau (23 BUR IV.B.71) demands a halt and security measures; the Committee (23 COM X.B.43) voices concern, seeks removal, and raises possible danger-listing. [V]
• 2000 — Stadium demolition proceeds; the Bureau notes danger-listing was not formalised (24 BUR IV.B.72); a UNESCO–ICOMOS Reactive Monitoring mission visits 1–5 October 2000; the Committee appreciates the mitigation and directs implementation of the mission's recommendations (24 COM VIII.33). [V] The domestic precedent in full: intervention on ancient fabric → international alarm → State Party reversal → escalation arrested with appreciation on the record.
• 1995–2013 — The documented SOC record spans 1995, 1999, 2000 and 2013: vegetation control, heavy industry and quarrying vibration, boundary-definition weaknesses, looting at monastic sites. Vulnerabilities were known and on the international record long before 2026. [V — SOC archive; the earlier internal "1999–2013" span is corrected to 1995–2013]
• 2010 — The 18th Constitutional Amendment devolves archaeology to the provinces; the Federation remains State Party. The coordination seam. [V]
• 2013 — Retrospective SOV adopted (37 COM 8E). [V]
• July 2025 — The Punjab government's own Taxila 2055 Archaeological Master Plan is produced by the Urban Unit for the Tourism, Archaeology & Museums Department, acknowledging DG Archaeology Zaheer Abbas Malik. [V — the plan itself]
• 2025–2026 — Conservation works at Mohra Moradu and Sirkap under provincial programmes reportedly apply cement mortar and rebuild wall sections. [R]
• March 2026 — A member of the public transmits photographs and details to Pakistan's Permanent Delegate to UNESCO in Paris. [V — Dawn]
• 12 June 2026 — Joint technical mission (UNESCO/DOAM/Ministry) visits Taxila. [V]
• Early July 2026 — The World Heritage Centre conveys concerns, requests the documentary record, and warns of possible danger-listing. [V]
• July 2026 — A public-interest constitutional petition is filed in the Lahore High Court grounded in the public trust doctrine, Convention Art. 4, and OG paras 172 and 118bis. [R — petition record to be annexed]
• 19–29 July 2026 — The 48th session sits in Busan. [V] Whether Taxila appears as a scheduled SOC item is not established: no Taxila item has been identified in the published 48COM documentation as at 23 July 2026, and the 7B addenda must be read directly before any assertion either way. [TV]

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Part III — The evidence base, and its limits

3.1 Established: the works occurred; the March 2026 report to the Permanent Delegate; the June 2026 joint mission; UNESCO's documentation request; the danger-listing warning. [V]

3.2 Asserted but contested: whether the works constitute reconstruction (irreversible, authenticity-destroying) or stabilisation (reversible, authenticity-preserving).

3.3 The State Party's position, in full and in fairness. The Punjab archaeology department, through Director General Malik Zaheer Abbas, rejects the "reconstruction" characterisation: the interventions are conservation measures intended to stabilise vulnerable remains, prevent further deterioration, and preserve authenticity in line with internationally accepted conservation principles. [V — his stated position] This report treats that position as exactly what it is: a factual claim the requested documents would support if correct.

3.4 Why the dispute is evidential. The disagreement is resolvable by documents that UNESCO has already requested. Both sides' cases live in the same file.

3.5 Source-quality caution. A substantial part of the international coverage originates from outlets with a political orientation toward Pakistan. This report anchors to Pakistani reporting (Dawn) and the UNESCO primary record, and says so openly.

3.6 The gap PWHI cannot close from outside: no independent condition survey, no materials analysis, no access to the intervention file. Decisions P4 and P6 exist to close it.

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Part IV — The governing legal and institutional framework

4.1 International. [V]

• Convention Art. 4 — the State Party's positive duty to identify, protect, conserve, present and transmit heritage to future generations.
• Convention Art. 11(4) — the Danger List mechanism.
• OG para. 172 — the State Party must inform the Committee, through the Secretariat, of intended major restorations or new constructions which may affect OUV — "as soon as possible and before making any decisions that would be difficult to reverse."
• OG para. 118bis — impact assessment for planned developments in and around properties. (Both verified against WHC.25/01, 16 July 2025.)
• Reactive Monitoring and the Reinforced Monitoring Mechanism.

4.2 Federal. [V for s.22 text as extracted]

• Antiquities Act 1975, s.22 (as extracted from the statute text): "Notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force, no development plan or scheme or new construction on, or within a distance of two hundred feet of a protected immovable antiquity shall be undertaken or executed [except] with the approval of the Director General." [V — extracted text; confirm against the gazette print before court-facing use; the extraction carries an OCR artefact ("accept" for "except")]
• s.23 prohibits advertisement, neon signs and bill-posting on protected antiquities.
• National Fund for Cultural Heritage Act 1994.
• The Federation's continuing character as State Party notwithstanding devolution.

4.3 Provincial (Punjab).

• Punjab Special Premises (Preservation) Ordinance 1985; the department's custodial role post-2010. [TV — operative provisions to be extracted]
• The third tier the earlier drafts missed [V]: a current provincial planning instrument exists for this property — the Taxila 2055 Archaeological Master Plan (Urban Unit, 2025; planning horizon 2055; DG Archaeology named). Devolution did not leave a vacuum; it produced a plan. The plan's own words: "Basic reason of the problems related to World Heritage Sites is lack of proper implementation of management plan"; "there is no proper law enforcement and monitoring for protection of boundaries and buffer zones." The province documented the enforcement gap itself, then works proceeded into it.
• On extracted text, the plan's 30 uses of "cement" are regional description and a bill of quantities for new construction (concrete mixes, reinforcement); no materials-compatibility standard, no lime-mortar specification, no prohibition on cement against historic masonry was found; "authenticity" does not appear in the extracted text. [absence findings — extracted text only (116 embedded images); must be confirmed against page renders before court-facing use]

4.4 Constitutional. The 18th Amendment settlement; Art. 4 read against a devolved administrative structure; the public trust doctrine in Pakistani heritage jurisprudence [TV — case citations to be re-verified before court-facing use].

4.5 The core proposition. Devolution redistributed administration; it did not redistribute the Federation's international responsibility. Both governments therefore hold decisions only they can take.

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Part V — Compliance analysis: what was required against what was done

5.1 The compliance matrix — three standards, not one:

5.2 The five documents UNESCO requested — and what each would prove.

1. The Heritage Impact Assessment — whether the para-118bis standard was met before works began.
2. Before-and-after photographic documentation — the actual physical change.
3. Drawings of the proposed intervention — designed or improvised.
4. Laboratory reports of materials used — the cement question, settled analytically.
5. Any archaeological excavation reports — whether buried evidence was disturbed.

5.3 The current, Pakistan-specific articulation of the standard. The Committee's draft decision on Moenjodaro (48 COM 7B.20 — draft; provisional until adopted) restates to Pakistan that HIAs and project documentation must be submitted to the World Heritage Centre before works begin or irreversible decisions are made. [V as to the draft text's existence; draft status clearly flagged] The earlier internal reliance on Makli as a "paras 118bis/172 precedent" was checked and withdrawn; Makli's relevance is the conduct precedent at VI.4, nothing more.

5.4 The candidate headline finding. The province had a plan, a delivery unit, a named Director General and a 2055 horizon — and no materials standard governing what may be applied to ancient masonry. The gap decisions F7 and P7 exist to close.

5.6 Comparative practice at this very session — the closest authority available. The 48th session's revised state-of-conservation working document for properties on the World Heritage List (WHC/26/48.COM/7B.Add.3.Rev) records a case whose facts track this one closely: tourism and urban-development works already implemented inside a World Heritage property; a technical review finding they could cause significant permanent negative impacts on authenticity and integrity; the World Heritage Centre welcoming the State Party's suspension of further works until Heritage Impact Assessment requirements were met; and a recommendation that the suspension remain in force pending a joint World Heritage Centre/ICOMOS Reactive Monitoring Mission. The same document states, as general propositions, that projects within World Heritage boundaries should not proceed without prior notification to the Centre and an HIA; that management, conservation and visitor-management plans should be submitted for technical review before adoption; that conservation needs should be tied to a formal register of the attributes carrying Outstanding Universal Value; and that tourism investment cannot override the protection of authenticity and integrity. [R — reported from a reading of the revised working document; the property name, draft decision number and verbatim wording must be pinned from the document itself before any court-facing use. [TV]]

Why it matters here, stated with precision. This is an Egypt-specific working document, not a decision concerning Pakistan, and a working document is not an adopted decision — it is a Secretariat and Advisory Body recommendation which the Committee may amend or reject. It therefore proves nothing about Taxila. What it does establish is current UNESCO practice on materially similar facts, recorded at the very session now sitting: where works have already been executed inside a property and their impact on authenticity is disputed, the Centre's recommended course is suspend, assess, then let an independent mission look — the precise sequence decisions P1, F4 and F3 of this report request. For the Lahore High Court proceedings it is persuasive material going to the reasonableness and proportionality of interim relief: the applicant is not asking the Court to invent a remedy, but to order the same precautionary step that the Convention's own Secretariat has just commended to another State Party in comparable circumstances.

A caution that must travel with this authority. Reporting on the Egyptian tourism development best known to this description indicates that earlier UNESCO requests to halt construction were not complied with. If the property in the revised document is that one, then the passage records a suspension arriving late, after years of unheeded requests — which strengthens rather than weakens the argument for acting now at Mohra Moradu and Sirkap, but must be characterised accurately and never presented as a model of prompt compliance. [TV — resolve the property identity before relying on this paragraph.]

5.5 The finding the report can safely make today: either the documents exist and should be published, or they do not and the compliance failure is established by that absence.

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Part VI — Risk assessment

(Adopted from the reviewed draft of 19 July 2026, with its verification log; corrections applied. Full text in the working papers; the operative findings:)

VI.1 Physical risk — irreversibility. Lime mortars are soft, porous, vapour-permeable and removable; Portland cement is hard, dense, and traps moisture and salts that then decay the ancient stone preferentially; cured cement cannot generally be removed without damaging original fabric [V — doctrine; ICCROM/ICOMOS citation to be attached [TV]]. Suspension costs a delay; not suspending risks permanent loss. The asymmetry is the whole argument for P1.

VI.2 Compliance risk — assess (118bis), notify (172), act. Cement on ancient masonry is the paradigm "difficult to reverse" decision; para 172 is engaged on its own terms. The risk is evidential and self-executing: the paper is the case, whichever way it runs.

VI.3 The escalation ladder — SOC reporting → Reactive Monitoring → Reinforced Monitoring → Danger List (Art. 11(4)) → deletion. On the public record Taxila sits at or about stage 2. It is not at stage 4, and this report does not suggest otherwise. [V]

VI.4 The Makli precedent — correctly stated. Makli is not danger-listed; the 43rd session (2019) postponed consideration expressly citing the State Party's positive approach and initiatives underway. The danger-listing risk is real; State Party conduct can arrest it; and the precedent is about conduct, not subject-matter (Makli's issues are omission — neglect, burials, fire, floods — not intervention). [V — verified 19 July 2026] The Bhir Mound stadium episode (Part II) is the still closer domestic precedent: same property, an intervention, reversal, appreciation.

VI.5 Pipeline risk. 6 inscribed; 29 Tentative (never merged); nothing inscribed since Rohtas Fort, 1997; seven candidates waiting since 1993. A live authenticity controversy drags on all 29 candidacies — including Port of Banbhore, whose nomination is complete for examination at the 49th session (2027). [V]

VI.6 Session-timing risk. Cooperative action during the open session carries maximal weight; the same steps in September read as compliance under pressure. This is a point about attention and opportunity, not a claim that Taxila is docketed at Busan. [TV as to the agenda]

VI.7 Systemic risk — Taxila as symptom. Of ~6,200 catalogued places, ~11% carry statutory protection; Gilgit-Baltistan protects 0.3% (1 of 373); rock art ~3.3%; 119 sites carry a loss-signal in their own record, none ground-verified. [V — PWHI inventory analysis; gazette reconciliation pending [TV]] Detection failed at the country's most scrutinised property until a visitor with a camera acted; capacity failure (no funded HIA practice, no materials-testing habit, a 29-year nomination drought) is one failure presenting in four places. Hence F8 and F9.

VI.8 The cost of inaction — cement cures; absent records harden into findings; the Makli strategy is forfeited; 29 candidacies wait; the federal–provincial seam stays open for the next episode. None of this requires bad faith; it follows from inaction alone.

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Part VII — Decisions required: FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

(Adopted in full from the reviewed draft of 19 July 2026 — decision register in Part 0; operative text F1–F9 as drafted, including:) the intervention file transmitted within 7 days (F1, with the candour note: if the HIA does not exist, say so plainly); the Busan posture settled now — cooperative disclosure recommended (F2); the Reactive Monitoring mission invited (F3) — noting the June joint visit involved the executing authorities and is not a substitute [TV — confirm the visit's formal character]; the independent retrospective HIA (F4); the standing coordination mechanism with a named officer per property (F5); the standing instruction — no major works without HIA and para-172 notification (F6); the conservation/reconstruction distinction legislated (F7) [TV — reconcile drafting against Act 1975 sections]; the budget line (F8); the federal position on the unprotected majority (F9).

Part VIII — Decisions required: GOVERNMENT OF THE PUNJAB

(Adopted in full from the reviewed draft — register in Part 0; operative text P1–P9 as drafted, including:) suspension of works (P1 — the only decision where delay causes irreversible loss; suspension is not an admission); publication of the five documents (P2 — the Department's own stated position is best served by its own file; if a document does not exist, say so); the records-preservation order (P3); independent materials analysis (P4); the technical focal point (P5); the published reversibility assessment (P6); the binding provincial conservation protocol (P7); procurement and contractor-qualification reform (P8); the annual state-of-conservation statement (P9).

The three decisions that matter this week: P1 (suspend) · P2/F1 (publish and transmit) · F3 (invite the mission). Each can be taken within seven days; none requires legislation, budget, or the resolution of any question of fault.

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Part IX — Joint decisions neither tier can take alone

9.1 A federal–provincial protocol on World Heritage properties: who notifies, who executes, who answers to the Committee. 9.2 A national conservation-standards instrument binding across provinces. 9.3 The nomination programme for the 29 — funded and time-bound (Banbhore's completed nomination shows the pipeline can move when resourced). 9.4 A national ground-truthing programme for the 6,200, beginning with the 119 loss-signal sites. 9.5 A 36-month reform sequence with published milestones (the sequence at pwhi.digital/policy).

Part X — Recommendations in priority order

This week: P1 · P2/F1 · F3. This month: F2 posture executed in Busan; P3; P4; P5; P6; F4; F5; F6. This year: F7; F8; F9; P7; P8; P9; the joint instruments of Part IX. What PWHI undertakes: to publish this report and its verification log; to monitor and date every development on the Taxila Watch page; to track each of the eighteen decisions above and report progress publicly; and to correct this report on evidence, openly, as the record develops.

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Annexures

A. Chronology with sources — Part II, with decision codes and UNESCO URLs (machine copies in PWHI's UNESCO crawl dataset: decisions.csv, soc.csv, timeline.csv).

B. The five requested documents — status tracker.

C. Legal instruments engaged — Convention Arts. 4, 11(4); OG paras 118bis, 172 (WHC.25/01); Antiquities Act 1975 s.22 (operative text at Part IV.2), s.23; National Fund Act 1994; Punjab instruments [TV].

D. State of Conservation record, 1995–2013 — SOC 1995, 1999, 2000, 2013; decisions 19 BUR VI.22, 19 COM VII.C.2.47/48, 23 BUR IV.B.71, 23 COM X.B.43, 24 BUR IV.B.72, 24 COM VIII.33, 26 BUR XVI.1 (Ranigat extension assistance), 37 COM 8E; the October 2000 UNESCO–ICOMOS Reactive Monitoring mission (whc.unesco.org/en/documents/140019). [V]

E. The national context — protection-gap tables by province, typology and period from PWHI's inventory analysis workbook (`pak_heritage_inventory_analysis.xlsx`); headline figures at VI.7.

F. Correspondence and public statements — the Punjab DG's position (Part III.3); the PWHI press statement of 19 July 2026; the Cabinet memorandum of 16 July 2026 (note: the memorandum's session-numbering and date details are inconsistent with this report's verified chronology and must be reconciled before further circulation).

G. Sources and verification log — the consolidated log of Part VI's draft, updated by this edition: SOC span corrected to 1995–2013 [V]; Bhir stadium episode added [V]; s.22 operative text added [V — extracted]; Makli-as-118bis/172-precedent withdrawn; Master Plan absence-findings carried with their extraction caveat; Taxila-on-agenda remains [TV] both directions.

H. Map and property references — UNESCO property page No. 139; the 18 components (Part I.2); component and buffer geometry per the property record [coordinates in the national inventory are source-provided, unverified].

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Working Edition, 23 July 2026, assembled from PWHI drafting papers of 19 July 2026 under the report's own [V]/[R]/[TV] discipline. This edition is publishable as a civil-society working document; a court- or government-facing version requires the [TV] items closed first. Corrections: corrections@pwhi.digital.