Viewing page 77 of 201

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

NOTES ON SAFEGUARDING AND CONSERVING CULTURAL MATERIAL IN THE FIELD.                   3

II. THE CHOICE OF CULTURAL MATERIAL TO BE SAFEGUARDED AND CONSERVED

1. The officer charged with safeguarding and conserving cultural material should first find out what needs to be safeguarded, and put the various buildings, objects, etc. roughly in order of importance, as a guide to priority in action.

Two main factors have to be taken in consideration:
(i) The attitude and sentiment of the local inhabitants.
(ii) The opinion of the artistic and learned world in general.

If these coincide, as to the importance of some monument or material, so much the better; if not, as sometimes happens, give greater weight to local opinion.

To assist in making such a selection and arrangement, lists of monuments and material in different districts have been prepared by competent authorities for army use.  These differ from accounts in guide books in giving more weight to local opinion, and by including:
(a) Private collections not ordinarily accessible to the public.
(b) Installations and collections whose primary interest is in connection with learning and research.
If such lists are not available, recourse must be had to guide books.  [[underline]] Baedeker's guides [[/underline]] (published in