Management and Conservation of Cultural Heritage: Sites and Museum Collections (CRC4)
11 November – 13 December 2012

Partners

• ICCROM (International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property)
• The Government of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates:
• Sharjah Department of Information and Culture
• Sharjah Museums Department
• American University of Sharjah
• University of Sharjah
• ALECSO (Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization)
• National Council of Tourism and Antiquities, United Arab Emirates

Duration: 5 weeks (11 November – 13 December 2012)

Place: Sharjah, United Arab Emirates with a one week excursion to Doha, Qatar

Participants
Twenty-two heritage professionals from different academic and professional backgrounds, from Bahrain, Canada, Egypt, India, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Oman, Qatar, Sudan, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen

Aim
The overall aim was to introduce professionals working in the Arab Region to the field of conservation and management of built heritage and museum collections. This foundation course provided basic knowledge for professionals who wished to develop their knowledge in specialized cultural heritage fields including heritage documentation, presentation and interpretation, preventive conservation of cultural heritage materials, management of heritage places, cultural tourism, and risk preparedness.

Activities
This interactive course consisted of both theoretical and practical components which took place in the classroom, laboratory, applied workshops, and work carried out on cultural heritage sites which complemented the work carried out in the classroom.

Main achievements
Participants acquired a critical approach to the management and conservation of heritage sites and museum collections in Arab countries by familiarizing themselves with:

• conservation in the context of broader heritage management issues such as tourism, site presentation and development pressures, and assessing legal and institutional contexts;
• the basic (international) principles of heritage conservation processes in order to devise informed conservation strategies for heritage sites and museum collections;
• methodologies of assessing conditions within the different types of materials in historic buildings and museum collections, and developing strategies for achieving appropriate conditions for heritage materials and collections;
• exploration of conceptual and practical tools of risk and management assessments, and the principles of surveying and monitoring collections as well as historic structures in their environment;
• promoting discussion among specialists in these fields;

Member States represented: Bahrain, Canada, Egypt, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Libya, Oman, Qatar, Spain, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Yemen

updated on: 29 January, 2013