India's moidam royal burial mounds are its latest World Heritage Site

NEW DELHI (AP) — The Charaideo Moidam royal burial complex and shrines, built by northeast India's Ahom dynasty, has been inscribed as a new World Heritage Site, the United Nations' cultural agency said on Friday.

UNESCO experts, who are deliberating on a list of sites nominated for the World Heritage Site tag, announced the decision in Indian capital New Delhi, where they are holding their 46th session.

The Charaideo Moidams, located in Assam state, are a mound burial system that served as a resting place for Ahom kings and queens. They were constructed by providing an earth cover over a hollow vault made of bricks, stone or earth.

The designated site contains 90 modiams of different sizes, which were created over a period of 600 years, and include other cultural features like ceremonial pathways and bodies of water, said a spokesperson from ICOMOS, the advisory body of the World Heritage Committee.

“The moidams are an exceptional example of an Ahom necropolis that represents funeral traditions and associated beliefs in a tangible way,” they added.

The Ahom clan established their capital in different parts of the Brahmaputra River Valley between the 12th to 18th century, after migrating from China, according to the U.N. cultural agency's website. They established the first capital at the Patkai hills in eastern India and named it Charaideo, which means “a dazzling city above the mountain” in their language. Even though the clan moved across cities, the burial site they built was seen as the most sacred place for the departed souls of the royals.

Experts say the shrines showcase the architecture and expertise of Assam's masons, comparing them to the royal tombs of China and the pyramids of the Egyptian Pharaohs.

The site has the largest concentration of these vaulted mound burials, according to UNESCO, and reflects the sculpted landscape of the surrounding hills.

India is now home to 43 World Heritage Sites.

Other sites inscribed on Friday included the Colonies of the Moravian Church in Germany, the U.S. and U.K.; the Umm Al-Jimal in Jordan and the Badain Jaran Desert in China.

The committee also inscribed the Monastery of Saint Hilarion, in the archeological site of Tell Umm Amer in the Gaza Strip, on both the World Heritage List and on the List of World Heritage in Danger. It said the decision recognized the site's value and the need to protect it given threats posed by the conflict in the Gaza Strip.

A view of the Moidams burial mounds in Charaideo, in upper Assam, India, Sept 27, 2022. The Charaideo Moidam royal burial complex and shrines, built by northeast India's Ahom dynasty, has been inscribed as a new World Heritage Site, the United Nations' cultural agency said on Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)

A view of the Moidams burial mounds in Charaideo, in upper Assam, India, Sept 27, 2022. The Charaideo Moidam royal burial complex and shrines, built by northeast India's Ahom dynasty, has been inscribed as a new World Heritage Site, the United Nations' cultural agency said on Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)

An aerial view of the Moidams burial mounds in Charaideo, in upper Assam, India, Sept 27, 2022. The Charaideo Moidam royal burial complex and shrines, built by northeast India's Ahom dynasty, has been inscribed as a new World Heritage Site, the United Nations' cultural agency said on Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Wholesale costs in the United States picked up sharply last month, signaling that price pressures are still evident in the economy even though inflation has tumbled from the peak levels it hit more than two years ago.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that its producer price index — which tracks inflation before it reaches consumers — rose 0.4% last month from October, up from 0.3% the month before. Measured from 12 months earlier, wholesale prices climbed 3% in November, the sharpest year-over-year rise since February 2023.

Higher food prices helped fuel the November wholesale inflation reading, which was higher than economists had expected.

Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core producer prices rose 0.2% from October and 3.4% from November 2023.

The wholesale price report comes a day after the government reported that consumer prices rose 2.7% in November from a year earlier, up from an annual gain of 2.6% in October. The increase, fueled by pricier used cars, hotel rooms and groceries, showed that elevated inflation has yet to be fully tamed.

Inflation in consumer prices has plummeted from a four-decade high 9.1% in June 2022. Yet despite having reached relatively low levels, it has so far remained persistently above the Fed’s 2% target.

Despite the modest upticks in inflation last month, the Federal Reserve is poised to cut its benchmark interest rate next week for a third consecutive time. In 2022 and 2023, the Fed raised its key short-term rate 11 times — to a two-decade high — in a drive to reverse an inflationary surge that followed the economy's unexpectedly strong recovery from the COVID-19 recession. The steady cooling of inflation led the central bank, starting in September, to begin reversing that move.

The producer price index released Thursday can offer an early look at where consumer inflation might be headed. Economists also watch it because some of its components, notably healthcare and financial services, flow into the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge — the personal consumption expenditures, or PCE, index.

FILE - Coca-Cola cans move down a conveyer belt in the Swire Coca-Cola bottling plant Oct. 20, 2023, in Denver. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson, File)