Cultural heritage

Cultural heritage is the special and important things that a group or society receives from the past. It includes things we can see and touch, and things we cannot, like stories and traditions. Tangible culture includes buildings, monuments, landscapes, archival documents, books, works of art, and artifacts. Intangible culture includes folklore, traditions, language, and knowledge. Natural heritage includes important landscapes and biodiversity.

Keeping cultural heritage safe for future generations is called preservation in American English or conservation in British English. Museums and cultural centers help protect these treasures. Cultural heritage also helps bring people together and supports the global tourism industry, adding economic value to many places.

There are many laws and agreements to protect cultural heritage. Organizations like UNESCO and Blue Shield International work to make sure important cultural items are safe, even during times of conflict with United Nations peacekeeping.

Types of heritage

See also: Indigenous intellectual property

Cultural property

See also: Material culture

Cultural property includes the physical parts of a culture, such as artworks. These are split into two groups: things that can be moved and things that cannot be moved. Things that cannot be moved include buildings, large industrial sites, homes, and historic places or monuments. Things that can be moved include books, documents, artworks that can be carried, machines, clothing, and other important objects. These objects help us learn about a culture.

Preserving these physical parts of culture involves several areas of study, such as Museology, Archival science, and Conservation (cultural heritage), which includes Art conservation, Archaeological conservation, Architectural conservation, Film preservation, and Phonograph record preservation. Also important is Digital preservation.

Intangible culture

Main article: Intangible cultural heritage

See also: Cultural expressions

"Intangible cultural heritage" refers to the non-physical parts of a culture, such as traditions, customs, and practices. These include social values, traditions, customs, beliefs, artistic expression, and language. These parts of culture are often kept alive through social customs and can be harder to preserve than physical objects.

Preserving intangible culture includes areas such as folklore, oral history, and language preservation.

Natural heritage

See also: Conservation movement

"Natural heritage" includes the natural environment, such as plants, animals, and geological features. These natural sites are often important for tourism, attracting visitors from many places. Natural heritage can also include landscapes that have cultural meaning.

Preserving natural heritage includes efforts like Rare breeds conservation and Heirloom plants.

Digital heritage

See also: Digital preservation

Digital heritage includes computer-based materials like texts, images, sounds, and software kept for future generations. This also includes items originally created digitally, such as websites or digital art. Digital heritage helps us remember how visual symbols, like brand logos, change over time and show social and technological development. Recent studies have used advanced technology to study and preserve old cultural objects.

Protection of cultural heritage

Main article: Historic preservation

People have respected important cultural items for a very long time, even in ancient times. Rules to protect these treasures during wars started with leaders like Maria Theresa and agreements such as the Congress of Vienna. Later, important meetings like the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 helped make laws to keep cultural items safe during conflicts. In 1954, an agreement called the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict was made to protect cultural treasures when wars happen.

Protecting cultural heritage means keeping important items safe from harm, theft, or damage. This includes stopping people from taking things from archaeological sites or stealing art from museums. Many groups work together, such as the UN, UNESCO, and Blue Shield International, to help protect these treasures. Working with local communities is very important to make sure these special places and items are preserved for everyone.

Ethics and rationale

Objects help us learn about history because they show us real evidence and help us remember important events. Keeping these objects safe shows that we value our past. Even though we can make very accurate digital copies, there is something special about seeing the real thing — it lets us feel connected to history. However, showing these objects to people can sometimes damage them, and they also change over time naturally.

Different generations may value history and its objects differently. Protecting cultural heritage isn’t just about saving things — it also involves making good rules and plans to care for our shared history. Some leaders have said that saving both people and important historical places is equally important.

Ancient Indian traditions placed great importance on preserving knowledge and customs, seeing them as valuable resources for society. They believed that what was passed down should be cared for and possibly improved before being given to future generations.

Recent studies in places like Bradford show how heritage and culture can help communities feel stronger and support each other.

World heritage movement

See also: International Council on Monuments and Sites, Heritage for Peace, International Council of Museums, and International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property

The Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage was adopted by UNESCO in 1972. As of 2011, there are 936 World Heritage Sites in 153 countries. These places are important to people all around the world.

Underwater cultural heritage is protected by the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage.

UNESCO also chooses special examples of masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has helped make protecting cultural heritage a basic human right.

Key international documents and groups include:

• Athens Charter, 1931
• Roerich Pact, 1935
• Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, 1954
• Venice Charter, 1964
• Barcelona Charter, 2002
• ICOMOS
• The Blue Shield
• International Institute for Conservation

The U.S. Government Accountability Office has reported on the United States' efforts to protect cultural property.

In recent decades, some scholars have started the open heritage movement.

National and regional heritage movements

Many efforts to protect and preserve heritage happen at the national, regional, or local levels. Different countries have their own groups and rules to help care for important cultural places and objects.

Some examples include:

• Australia
• Bosnia
• Brazil
• Canada
• Chile
• China
• Egypt
• Estonia
• Ghana
• Honduras
• Hong Kong
• India
• Iran
• Japan
• Kenya
• North Macedonia
• Malaysia
• Namibia
• New Zealand
• Pakistan
• Philippines
• Poland
• Serbia
• South Africa
• United Kingdom
• United States of America
• Zambia
• Zimbabwe

Issues in cultural heritage

Cultural heritage includes many important ideas. These include giving treasures back to their home countries, looking after historic places, making laws to protect important items, having tourism that respects history, making digital copies of heritage, and preserving heritage in ways that help the environment. Climate change can also impact places that are important to our history.

Management of cultural heritage

Managing cultural heritage has many important jobs. These jobs include showing cultural objects in exhibitions, using special ways to study objects, storing items safely, keeping collections in good shape, and getting ready for disasters to protect cultural treasures. Another important job is cultural planning. This helps communities decide how to care for and use their heritage.

Cultural heritage digital preservation

Ancient artefacts and sites can be damaged because of their age and the environment. Sadly, some disasters have happened, like a fire at the old National Museum of Brazil and damage to the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

Because of this, people are working hard to save cultural treasures by turning them into digital, or computer-based, copies. This helps protect them from future problems like climate change, storms, or bad planning. For example, the Library of Congress has a special program called the National Digital Library Program to digitize its collections. The Smithsonian also shares digital versions of many of its items through the "Smithsonian X 3D Explorer."

Special tools called 3D scanning devices can create exact digital models of artefacts. These used to be very expensive and hard to use, but now they are easier and cheaper, even for mobile apps. However, not all countries have done a lot of digital archiving yet. Even in places like the UK, where the Archaeology Data Service has been around since the 1990s, there is still much work to be done. Different countries have different rules about who owns these digital records and how they are kept.