Definition Of Cultural Heritage According To Unesco

Movable cultural heritage paintings sculptures coins manuscripts immovable cultural heritage monuments archaeological sites and so on underwater cultural heritage shipwrecks underwater ruins and cities intangible cultural heritage.

Definition of cultural heritage according to unesco. Oral traditions performing arts rituals. World heritage list the 1972 unesco world heritage convention currently has 176 states parties. The term cultural heritage has changed content considerably in recent decades partially owing to the instruments developed by unesco. Intangible heritage according to unesco is a set of traditions and living expressions that we inherited from our ancestors and we transfer to our descendants.

Cultural heritage includes artefacts monuments a group of buildings and sites museums that have a diversity of values including symbolic historic artistic aesthetic ethnological or anthropological scientific and social significance. It also includes traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants such as oral traditions. Cultural heritage does not end at monuments and collections of objects. In order to answer this definition we need to go back again to what unesco says intangible cultural heritage is.

Cultural heritage which includes the signs and symbols passed on by oral transmission artistic and literary forms of expression languages ways of life myths beliefs and rituals value systems and traditional knowledge and know how. The situation of the cultural heritage has deteriorated during recent years as a result. It also includes traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants such as oral traditions performing arts social practices rituals festive events knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe or the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts. The sites are designated as having outstanding universal value under the convention concerning the protection of the world cultural and natural heritage.

Article 7 cultural heritage as the wellspring of creativity creation draws on the roots of cultural tradition but flourishes in contact with other cultures. Cultural heritage does not end at monuments and collections of objects. The intangible cultural heritage means the practices representations expressions knowledge skills as well as the instruments objects artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith that communities groups and in some cases individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. For this reason heritage in all its forms must be preserved enhanced and handed on to future generations as a record of human experience and aspirations so as to foster creativity in all its diversity and to inspire genuine dialogue among cultures.

The term cultural heritage encompasses several main categories of heritage.