2. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. CULTURAL HERITAGE
Cultural Heritage can be further divided into two
main groups.
Cultural Heritage
Tangible Heritage Intangible Heritage
7. TANGIBLE
Tangible Heritage refers to those significant places
that advocate the country’s history and culture. For
example monuments, mosques, shrines,
monasteries etc
8. INTANGIBLE HERITAGE
Intangible Heritage refers to those aspects of a
country that cannot be touched or seen. For
example traditional music, folklore, language etc
9. 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.
10. 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
11. 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.
12. 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.
13. 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.
