The Getty Conservation Institute

Earthen architecture, which constitutes one of the

world’s most diverse and universal forms of cultural
heritage, is also one of the most challenging to preserve.
Earthen architecture is found on all continents and
dates from all periods of history. Sites range from
ancestral cities and settlements in Mali, the royal
palaces of Abomey in Benin, and monuments and
mosques in Iran to Buddhist temples on the Silk Road
in China and Spanish missions in California. Earthen
architecture is particularly prevalent in Africa, where it
has been a building tradition for centuries.

The many historic and contemporary earthen buildings

in Mali made that country the ideal setting for Terra
2008, the Tenth International Conference on the Study
and Conservation of Earthen Architectural Heritage.
This volume contains the proceedings of that confer-
ence, organized jointly by the Getty Conservation
Institute and the Mali Ministry of Culture.

Leslie Rainer, a wall paintings conservator and senior

project specialist at the Getty Conservation Institute,
is coauthor of Palace Sculptures of Abomey: History
Told on Walls. Angelyn Bass Rivera, a conservator
based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and principal of
Conservation Associates, is coeditor, with Leslie
Rainer, of The Conservation of Decorated Surfaces on
Earthen Architecture: Proceedings from the International
Colloquium, 22-25 September 2004, Mesa Verde National
Park, Colorado, U.S.A. David Gandreau is an archae-
ologist and researcher at the Center for the Research
and Application of Earth Architecture (CRATerre) in
Grenoble, France.

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