Heritage Without Borders: how do we know?

Monte Albán's Danzantes. The carved figures at the Zapotec capital were once called dancers; they are now widely interpreted as sacrificed war prisoners. The carvings did not change; the reading did.

The end of Angkor. The Khmer capital is generally said to have fallen around 1431, when Ayutthaya sacked it, but reference works note that the end of the Angkorian period is dated in different ways, and some of the citations they use are weak.

Who built what, and when. In Tripura (see our July issue), sources give different dates for Neermahal's construction. In Samarkand, one account of the Registan's later madrasas is flagged as needing a citation.

The lesson is not that nobody knows anything, but that dates and stories are the work of scholars, and they change. A good guide will tell you what is established, what is likely and what is argued over.