A CRITICAL ANTHOLOGY OF INTERNATIONAL CHARTERS, CONVENTIONS & PRINCIPLES ON DOCUMENTATION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE FOR CONSERVATION, MONITORING & MANAGEMENT

Abstract

Cultural heritage (CH) is a unique expression of human achievement which is endangered today. The world is losing many monuments and sites more rapidly than it can even be documented. Its documentation, pro-tection, and proper management are critical to enabling the scholars of heritage to study and interpret it, on behalf of and for the benefit of present and future generations. Documentation prior to any intervention in the CH is now an integral part of any conservation and preventive plan and process. It is also an essential prereq-uisite to form a comprehensive understanding of cultural significance and factors affecting CH conditions. As a baseline, surveying, recording, and documentation are critical for monitoring changes over time, degrada-tion, modifications and/or conservation intervention in addition to risk assessment and mitigation. This an-thology will review 50 International Charters, Conventions and Principles along nine decades (1930-2020) and will highlight 27 out of them related to documentation, recording and surveying. More analytically, this study reviewed 13 charters of the 27 from the period from the 30’s to the 90’s of the 20th Century, another 14 from the first and second decades of the new millennium (2000-2020), four significant publications on «recording» from English Heritage, initiatives of CIPA and Getty Conservation Institute, and the 10 representative docu-ments of the second decade of the New Millennium together with one notable publication of CIPA. The paper aims to present a critical review, assessment and investigation of these International Charters, Conventions and Principles related to the three main terms; surveying, recording, and documentation of CH. They will be discussed within the conservation, monitoring and management scope, from data collection to data sharing. The paper will trace the evolving conception of these terms and their interplay in the aforementioned Charters.