Heritage Convention

AUTHENTICITY AND INTEGRITY IN RELATION TO THE WORLD HERITAGE CONVENTION



INTRODUCTIONS



Integrity and/ or authenticity and conditions necessary for properties submitted for nomination as World heritage to be deemed of outstanding universal value.





The conditions of Authenticity and integrity are set out in the operational guidelines for implementations of the World Heritage Convention (Revised 2006).





The condition of Authenticity is also set out in the NARA document on Authenticity 1994.





The operational guidelines for implementation of the World Heritage Convention require that statements of integrity and/or authenticity be included in the nomination with a demonstration how the property satisfies the conditions of integrity and/or authenticity.






AUTHENTICITY



Meaning:



Authenticity may be defined as the search for the truth – it is the quality of being authentic, established authority for truth and corrections genuine and truthful; conforming to the fact and worthy of belief.





In a historical sense it is the measure of how close an action or custom is to what would actually have been used or done in the time period being depicted.





Under the world Heritage Convention, authenticity is states as the verification of truthfulness of historicity or proven origin of particular heritage, object or structure.




CRITERIA



The operational guidelines indicate that properties nominated under criteria (i) to (vi) must meet the conditions f authenticity.



The guidelines state that the ability to understand the value attributed to the heritage depends on the degree to which information sources about this value may be understood as credible or truthful.





Knowledge and understanding of these sources of information, in relation to original and subsequent characteristic of the cultural heritage, and their meaning, are the required bases for assessing all aspects of authenticity.





This may differ from culture to culture, and even...