In order to understand the significance of each site explored on this page and its stewardship, it is first necessary to understand what exactly is meant by the phrase “cultural heritage.” A rather unbounded and contingent concept, our contemporary understanding of what constitutes cultural heritage is broad and difficult to describe. However, by studying the UNESCO definition of world heritage and classification of world heritage sites, it becomes possible to begin to understand the myriad components which constitute “cultural heritage.”
UNESCO defines world heritage as “the designation for places on Earth that are of outstanding universal value,” and defines culture as a set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual, and emotional features of a society or a social group. These features can be expressed as art, literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, traditions and beliefs. World heritage sites were first designation under the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and National Heritage, which UNESCO adopted in 1972 and formally came into effect in 1975 after being ratified by 22 countries. This convention laid out our current framework for the preservation and stewardship of major cultural heritage sites across the globe. It also provides a possible infrastructure through which to consider what “cultural heritage” is in the first place. Under the three types of designated sites under the UNESCO convention, monuments, town sites, archaeological sites, and works of art are classified under “cultural heritage sites.” But what makes these kinds of sites the locales for the transmission of “cultural heritage” and what exactly is this heritage?
Heritage can come in many forms—definitionally, it is a generational inheritance, one which may be either tangible or intangible. Intangible forms of heritage include oral traditions, community bonds, and language. Tangible forms of heritage are what we will explore on this page—material traces left behind which transmit important cultural and historical knowledge from one generation to the next.
In this way, tangible cultural heritage can be understood as monuments, town sites, archeological sites, and works of art which carry and transmit the cultural features of a society—the spiritual, material, intellectual, and emotional features of that society or group.