Naumburg Cathedral and the High Medieval Cultural Landscape of the Rivers Saale and Unstrut

The Naumburg Cathedral and the High Medieval Cultural Landscape of the Rivers Saale and Unstrut is situated in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Naumburg Cathedral and the surrounding cultural landscape were proposed by Germany as a World Heritage Site. On July 1, 2018, only Naumburg Cathedral was designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. This article discusses the cathedral and its cultural landscape based on the submissions in 1998 (cathedral) and 2005 (cultural landscape). The cathedral and surrounding cultural landscape is representative for processes at the High Middle Ages that shaped the whole continent: Christianization, settlement and cultivation processes, the so-called Landesausbau, that took place between 1000 and 1300. This borderland region also bears witness of the intercultural exchange of different cultures in the High Middle Ages. The highest-ranking buildings and works of art, most of all Naumburg Cathedral with its globally unique artistic and iconographic founder figures, provides testimony to the claims to power and the self-confidence of the worldly and spiritual rulers as well as to the region's crucial role as a place of interchange between Western and Eastern realms.