Lesson 4: Cultural Forms and Threats

Cultural Heritage
Legacy is what remains after one’s time. Handed down from one generation to another, legacy magnifies
one’s life and living. It is said that legacy is what cultural heritage is.

According to John Feather, cultural heritage is a human creation intended to inform.

 architectures such as buildings, houses, and structures

 artifacts like books, documents, objects, images, clothing, accessories, and jars
 things that made people who they are like oral stories, values, laws, norms, rituals, and traditions

Cultural heritage helps historians and archaeologists understand and decipher the way of living people of
yesterday had. Through these objects, we are presented with facts and figures which help us draw the
landscape of the world once was.

Tangible and Intangible Heritage

Cultural heritage is a representation of the ways of living established by society or group and passed on from
generation to generation. Cultural heritage can be categorized as either tangible or intangible.

Tangible Heritage
Tangible means perceptible, touchable, concrete, or physical. A tangible heritage is a physical artifact or
objects significant to the archaeology, architecture, science, or technology of a specific culture.

Objects that can be stored are included in this category:

 traditional clothing,
 utensils (such as bead work, water vessels),
 vehicles (such as the ox wagon),
 documents (codes, laws, land titles, literature), and
 public works and architecture built and constructed by a cultural group (buildings, historical places,
monuments, temples, graves, roads, and bridges fall into this category as well).

Intangible Heritage
Intangible is the opposite of tangible. Unlike tangible heritage, an intangible heritage is not a physical or
concrete item. Intangible heritage is that which exists intellectually in the culture.

Intangible heritage includes:

 songs,
 myths,
 beliefs,
 superstitions,
 oral poetry,
 stories, and
 various forms of traditional knowledge such as ethnobotanical knowledge.

Threats to Tangible and Intangible Heritage

There was a time in contemporary history when museums were in constant search and hurry to look for
historical materials to display. Due to the ascent of demand for cultural materials, opportunists saw this as an
avenue for them to earn money. They invented materials and claim that these were excavated or unearthed
and once owned by a cultural group.

 Documents whose authenticity are yet to be determined include Hitler diaries, crystal skulls of
Mesoamerica (tangible), and the status/story of Saint Nicholas' companion Black Peter (intangible).
 Authenticity or truthfulness of origin, attributes, and intentions of cultural heritage are one of the issues
concerning sources of our culture.
 Aside from authenticity issues, preservation or the act of making a cultural heritage lasting and existing is
also a primary concern.

Threats to Tangible and Intangible Heritage

There was a time in contemporary history when museums were in constant search and hurry to look for
historical materials to display. Due to the ascent of demand for cultural materials, opportunists saw this as an
avenue for them to earn money. They invented materials and claim that these were excavated or unearthed
and once owned by a cultural group.

 Documents whose authenticity are yet to be determined include Hitler diaries, crystal skulls of
Mesoamerica (tangible), and the status/story of Saint Nicholas' companion Black Peter (intangible).
 Authenticity or truthfulness of origin, attributes, and intentions of cultural heritage are one of the issues
concerning sources of our culture.
 Aside from authenticity issues, preservation or the act of making a cultural heritage lasting and existing is
also a primary concern.