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NOTES ON SAFEGUARDING AND CONSERVING CULTURAL MATERIAL IN THE FIELD                      5

III. TYPES OF MONUMENTS AND CULTURAL MATERIAL

In safeguarding and conservation, two main factors determine what can and should be done:
(i) The physical character of the objects concerned.
     Different materials are subject to different kinds of risk, or to varying degrees of the same risk, so that different kinds of protection and treatment may be needed.
(ii) Whether the objects concerned are movable or comparatively immovable.
     Immovable and very heavy or bulky objects will have to be dealt with wherever they happen to be, and surrounding conditions accepted.  Movable objects can be moved to places where conditions more favorable to safety can be set up.

It might seem desirable to list the monuments and cultural material which may be encountered according to physical character.   In fact, this is impractical (a) because many objects are composed of several different substances (b) because they are usually found grouped not according to their physical make-up, but according to the purpose they serve, or to the field of learning concerned with them.  The following list is, therefore, based primarily on the groups in which objects are likely to be encountered, notes on their physical character being added.  At the same time, they are