ICCROM COnseRvatIOn studIes 3 Conservation of Living Religious Heritage ICCROM COnseRvatIOn studIes 3 Conservation of Living Religious Heritage Papers from the ICCRoM 2003 forum on Living Religious Heritage: conserving the sacred Editors Herb Stovel, Nicholas Stanley-Price, Robert Killick ISBN 92-9077-189-5 © 2005 ICCROM International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property Via di San Michele, 13 00153 Rome, Italy www.iccrom.org Designed by Maxtudio, Rome Printed by Ugo Quintily S.p.A. Contents Preface v NICHOLAS STANLEY-PRICE introduction 1 HERB STOVEL Conserving built heritage in Maori communities 12 1 DEAN WHITING Christiansfeld: a religious heritage alive and well. TwenTy-firsT cenTury influences on a laTe eighTeenTh- 2 early nineTeenTh cenTury Moravian seTTleMenT in DenMark 19 JØRGEN BØYTLER the past is in the present 3 perspecTives in caring for BuDDhisT heriTage siTes in sri lanka 31 GAMINI WIJESURIYA the ise shrine and the Gion Festival case sTuDies on The values anD auThenTiciTy of Japanese 4 inTangiBle living religious heriTage 44 NOBUKO INABA A living religious shrine under siege The nJelele shrine/king Mzilikazi’s grave anD conflicTing 5 DeManDs on The MaTopo hills area of ziMBaBwe 58 PATHISA NYATHI AND CHIEF BIDI NDIWENI ISBN 92-9077-189-5 the challenges in reconciling the requirements of faith and © 2005 ICCROM 6 conservation in Mount Athos 67 International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property JANIS CHATZIGOGAS Via di San Michele, 13 00153 Popular worship of the Most Holy trinity of Vallepietra, Rome, Italy 7 central italy The TransforMaTion of TraDiTion anD The safeguarDing www.iccrom.org of iMMaTerial culTural heriTage 74 PAOLA ELISABETTA SIMEONI Designed by Maxtudio, Rome Printed by Ugo Quintily S.p.A. Conserving religious heritage within communities in Mexico 86 8 VALERIE MAGAR Collection management of islamic heritage in accordance 9 with the worldview and shari’ah of islam 94 AMIR H. ZEKRGOO AND MANDANA BARKESHLI the conservation of sacred materials in the israel Museum 102 10 MICHAEL MAGGEN religious heritage as a meeting point for dialogue 107 11 The caTheDral workshops experience CRISTINA CARLO-STELLA Contributors 113 iv conservaTion of living religious heriTage nIChOlas stanley-PRICe Director-General ICCROM Preface HE ICCROM FORUM IS DESIGNED to promote discussion of key contemporary scientific, technical and ethical issues in heritage conservation. It brings together invited speakers from different backgrounds to discuss a theme identified by ICCROM as being both topical and important for the better understanding of heritage conservation. T The first ICCROM Forum of a new series was held on 20-22 October 2003, on the theme of ‘Living Religious Heritage: conserving the sacred’. It was held at the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in the Palazzo Corsini in Rome. We are grateful to the Academy and especially to its then President, Professor Edoardo Vesentini, for allowing us to use its beautiful premises for the meeting. The invited participants were leading professionals, scholars and managers with experience of managing ‘Living Religious Heritage’ in different regions of the world and with respect to many of its major faiths and traditions. They were asked to prepare papers in case study form, which were circulated to all participants in advance of the Forum. M. Jean-Louis Luxen (Culture, Heritage and Development International (CHEDI), Brussels, and former Secretary-General of ICOMOS) was invited to give a keynote address on the theme. The present publication consists of papers submitted to the Forum, extensively edited and revised by the authors and editors. Many of the points made by M. Luxen in his keynote address have been incorporated in the Introduction written by Herb Stovel. In addition to the authors of papers published here, two other speakers made valuable contributions to the Forum as speakers, discussants and authors of pre-circulated papers: Sami M. Angawi (Amar Centre for Architectural Heritage, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) on the theme ‘Concept of universal balance and order: an integrated approach to reha- bilitate and maintain traditional architecture in Makka’; and Mons. Ruperto Cruz Santos (Philippine Pontifical College, Rome) who presented a case study of ‘Manila Cathedral: preserving the past, anticipating the future’. The paper on Christiansfeld published here by Jorgen Boytler was presented at the Forum by Jorgen From, Mayor of Christiansfeld, who has been an energetic supporter of the Christiansfeld conservation programme. I am indebted to Herb Stovel (now Carleton University, Ottawa) for agreeing to take on the organization of the Forum, ably assisted by Britta Rudolff (now University of Mainz), and to both of them for their commitment to ensuring the diversity and challenging nature of the issues discussed at it. Many other members of the ICCROM staff made important contributions in planning and organizing the event, and in participating in its proceedings as chairpersons and discussants. To them and to all contributing authors I am deeply grateful. preface v vi conservaTion of living religious heriTage [ h e Rb st O vel ] Introduction HE TOPIC CHOSEN FOR THE ICCROM FORUM IN 2003 was ‘Living Religious Heritage’. Implicitly, this choice suggests that ‘living religious heritage’ may differ from other forms of heritage in some way, and that therefore its conservation might also be subject to different considerations. In what ways might living religious heritage differ Tfrom cultural heritage in general? Several of the papers published here address this question. Gamini Wijesuriya suggests that what distinguishes religious heritage from secular heritage is its inherent ‘livingness’, that the religious values carried by a stupa embodying the living Buddha, for example, can only be sustained by ongoing processes of physical renewal of the stupa. In ensuring continuity of forms, in effect, ‘living’ heritage values are being elevated above the more familiar ‘documentary’ or ‘historical’ heritage values. The primary goal of conservation becomes continuity itself, based on processes of renewal that continually ‘revive the cultural meaning, significance… and symbolism attached to heritage’. In turn, Nobuko Inaba notes that, while ‘living’ may be understood as the opposite of ‘dead’ and refer to a place still in use, alternatively, it may be used to denote the presence of residents in settle- ments on or near the site. Like Wijesuriya, she suggests that attention to the ‘living’ aspects of religious heritage reflects efforts to go beyond the ‘material-oriented conservation practice of monumental heritage’ and to give attention to ‘human-related/non-material aspects of heritage value and trying to link with the surrounding societies and environments’. She further suggests, more provocatively, that ‘fruit from living heritage can be thought of traditional life before modernization and globalization’. In fact, all religions have regularly had to confront change and modernity; what is different now is the increasing pace of change, fed by improvements in electronic communication which permit ideas that challenge and undermine religious beliefs to be communicated more quickly, and more widely, than ever before. The pace of change has undermined the strength of traditional belief systems to maintain their place in secular societies, and has also increased tensions between multicultural societies which may previously have lived in relative harmony. These forces have exacerbated extreme nationalism, and polarized relations between and among religious groups, with heritage authorities seeking - often with insufficient understanding of them - to fossilize or freeze various aspects of heritage in the name of conservation. Taken to an extreme, cultural heritage may be used as a weapon in furthering the competing claims of various faiths. Places and objects of perceived heritage value to two different faiths may be demolished by the adherents of one faith in order to give ascendancy to the other. Such efforts may result in the preservation or reconstruction of buildings selected to reflect favoured versions of history. Jean-Louis Luxen noted in his introductory remarks on the occasion of the forum that ‘religious inTroducTion 1 conviction contributes to the social cohesion of a community, giving it landmarks and self-confidence… but that…the risk of excessive and chauvinistic assertion of identity, fed by fundamentalism, may lead to the destruction of religious symbols’. If, as it seems, living religious heritage does have characteristics that distinguish it from other forms of heritage, how might its conservation also differ? The effectiveness of conservation treatments depends on our ability to define clearly heritage values and to design treatments around respect for the values. Gamini Wijesuriya stresses the differ- ences between ‘religious heritage’ and ‘heritage’ by noting that religious heritage has been born with its values in place, while with other forms of heritage, we need time and distance to be able to ascribe values to heritage (p. 31). These differences will cause the conservator to ask different questions in defining heritage values in the two different situations: for religious heritage, what values are already recognized by the religious community? For secular heritage, what process (involving whom?) will be needed to define these values? Nobuko Inaba further reminds us to focus on more than typological differences