AN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL HERITAGEMuhyiddin School

WHAT IS HERITAGE?

Heritage is anything that is considered important enough to be passed on to the future generations.

Heritage is broadly categorized into two main divisions.

Heritage

Natural Heritage

Cultural Heritage

NATURAL HERITAGE

Natural Heritage refers to the natural aspects like the fauna and flora, landscapes, beaches, coral gardens etc that are considered important enough to be preserved for the future generations.

CULTURAL HERITAGE

Cultural Heritage refers to the cultural aspects like heritage sites, monuments, folklore, traditional activities and practices, language etc that are considered vital to be preserved for the future generations.

CULTURAL HERITAGE

Cultural Heritage can be further divided into two main groups.

Cultural Heritage

Tangible Heritage Intangible Heritage

TANGIBLE

Tangible Heritage refers to those significant places that advocate the country’s history and culture. For example monuments, mosques, shrines, monasteries etc

INTANGIBLE HERITAGE

Intangible Heritage refers to those aspects of a country that cannot be touched or seen. For example traditional music, folklore, language etc

UNDERSTANDING THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CULTURAL HERITAGE

There are 4 main aspects to understand the significance of cultural heritage sites. These aspects help to determine the management policies and procedure pursuant to the particular site. Thus It is very important to understand and determine the significances before embarking on a heritage project.

THE 4 MAIN ASPECTS ARE:

Historical Significances The age or relationship to historical era, person

or event. Historical significance is a relatively easy and over bearing trait in heritage management.

Social Significances Social Significance is hard to ascertain. It refers

to the social, spiritual and other community oriented values attributed to a place. This maybe because the place has existed to serve a certain important role in the society for a period of time.

Eg: Olympus Theatre in Male’, Fish Market & Local Market

Aesthetic Significance: refers to this special sense of Importance of a place. This could be in terms of architecture, scale or even the designs seen on the place.

Scientific Significance: refers to the scope or possibility of scientific findings from a site, monument or place. Here the importance lies more in the information that may yield out of understanding and researching the place or site. This can mostly be attributed to archaeological sites or ancient monuments.

IDENTITY

Identity refers to an understanding of yourself in relation to your culture. In short it refers to who you are but it ask to define yourself and how you have become yourself. It today’s context we refer to cultural identity which means (feeling of) identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as she or he is influenced by her belonging to a group or culture.

Cultural identity, if we refer back to culture, is nurtured by the cultural heritage of a country. It is vitalized by the understanding of the tangible heritage, a knowledge of the evaluation of the behavior patterns, values and traditions of that culture.

IN CONCLUSION

o Include cultural heritage in our Dhivehi syllabus.

o Conduct awareness programmes specially for youth on our heritage.

o The whole society should work as one to preserve our heritages to the upcoming generations.

Thank You..!!

SADHA AND SAMEEU