ARCHES: At-Risk Cultural Heritage Education Series

Whose art? Museums and repatriation

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Art is taken in war as a symbol of victory, but even during times of peace, art can represent the wealth and sophistication of the nation that controls it, or of its private owner.

Ruins, reconstruction, and renewal

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What can ruins tell us, and what should we do with them?

Place and identity

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The many forms of iconoclasm

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Destruction, looting, and trafficking

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Major threats to cultural heritage come in two forms: destruction during military conflict and the looting of sites and collections. Both in antiquity and in contemporary times, we often see these destructive activities going hand in hand, but we also see a greater recognition that cultural remains should be protected.

Documenting and protecting cultural heritage

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The role of archaeology

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Archaeologists dig to reveal the past. They meticulously preserve information that pieces together human history, but they also make choices about which histories they focus on in the sites they excavate. In contrast, looters dig for treasure and destroy context. But what about the collections that pre-date modern archaeology—the objects that have no recorded findspot—where the only real evidence we have comes from the object itself?

Cultural heritage endangered round the world

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From the ancient cities of Babylon and Palmyra to the tourist mecca of Venice, cultural heritage is endangered by forces such as rising sea levels, cruise tourism, and radical jihadists.

What you can do now

There are things each of us can do to protect cultural heritage. Learn how.