Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Frontispiece
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Contributors
- PART 1 ON DOCUMENTING ROCK ART
- Chapter 1 Rock art management: Juggling with paradoxes and compromises, 3 and how to live with them
- Chapter 2 Expressing intangibles: A recording experience with /Xam rock engravings
- Chapter 3 Aspects of documentation for conservation purposes exemplified by rock art
- Chapter 4 The position of rock art: A consideration of how GIS can contribute to the understanding of the age and authorship of rock art
- Chapter 5 Rock art in context: Theoretical aspects of pragmatic data collections
- Chapter 6 Representing southern African San rock art: A move towards digitisation
- Chapter 7 The routine of documentation
- Chapter 8 Prehistoric explorations in rock: Investigations beneath and beyond engraved surfaces
- PART 2 ON UNDERSTANDING ROCK ART USING INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE
- PART 3 ON PRESENTING ROCK ART
- Index
Chapter 3 - Aspects of documentation for conservation purposes exemplified by rock art
from PART 1 - ON DOCUMENTING ROCK ART
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 April 2018
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Frontispiece
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Contributors
- PART 1 ON DOCUMENTING ROCK ART
- Chapter 1 Rock art management: Juggling with paradoxes and compromises, 3 and how to live with them
- Chapter 2 Expressing intangibles: A recording experience with /Xam rock engravings
- Chapter 3 Aspects of documentation for conservation purposes exemplified by rock art
- Chapter 4 The position of rock art: A consideration of how GIS can contribute to the understanding of the age and authorship of rock art
- Chapter 5 Rock art in context: Theoretical aspects of pragmatic data collections
- Chapter 6 Representing southern African San rock art: A move towards digitisation
- Chapter 7 The routine of documentation
- Chapter 8 Prehistoric explorations in rock: Investigations beneath and beyond engraved surfaces
- PART 2 ON UNDERSTANDING ROCK ART USING INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE
- PART 3 ON PRESENTING ROCK ART
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
Documentation of any historical object is the process of describing the object's attributes in written and graphic form. It includes the gathering and integration of information which is considered relevant for identification, interpretation and conservation purposes. Such a task might be carried out on various levels and dictated by certain objectives. This paper will focus on the ideology behind documentation for conservation purposes.
The reasoning in this paper is based on the following two hypotheses. First, documentation in general has the potential to communicate attributes which contribute to the understanding of the object's context and meaning. This is a major premise for conserving the object so that its most significant values are retained. Secondly, documentation for conservation purposes is governed by the prevailing conservation ideology. Since this ideology has been subject to quite radical changes over the past 20 years or so, the first part of this paper contains a discussion about current conservation theory. This ought to be read with rock art sites in mind.
The second part of the paper is a discussion about issues of conservation and documentation in the field of rock art.
PART I: INITIAL REMARKS ON CONSERVATION
Conservation procedures are used to assess the nature and condition of the objects in order to rectify or ameliorate the effects of poor use and decay, and to minimise the processes of deterioration. Since the conservation process consistently recreates cultural heritage, it is important to be aware of the context in which it takes place.
Today, conservation is a many-sided process, but its activity has a collective aim, namely to contribute to memory through the maintenance of cultural heritage by which social groups assert their identity and values. The choice of what to preserve and how to preserve it represents every generation's vision of what should be passed on to future generations.
In western societies, cultural heritage has been perceived as primarily comprising material phenomena for nearly 300 years. During the latter half of the 20th century, the main objective was to preserve the physical integrity of the object by stabilising its component materials and by improving its environmental conditions.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Working with Rock ArtRecording, Presenting and Understanding Rock Art Using Indigenous Knowledge, pp. 25 - 36Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2012