Photo Gwil Owen, MAA

Photographs of cultural heritage by Gwil Owen

Fri 29 November 2013 - Fri 28 February 2014

Photographic & Illustration Service

Cultural heritage has many facets. Broadly speaking it is whatever a society does in the present, or preserves from its past. The Archaeologist studies past societies (recent and distant) through the medium of their remains and their traces in the landscape. The Anthropologist looks at modern societies worldwide - and of course their past as they express it now. Using "hard" and social sciences both can discover what societies other than our own have done, and how, and what peoples' lives were and are. This heritage is what we have acquired and use now. Curiosity about others is thought to be a prerequisite for understanding ourselves.

"Man knows himself only to the extent that he knows the world." (Goethe)

Heritage can also be considered from the point of view of what we bequeath to the future. Particularly in modern western societies it is a matter of principle that the past should be preserved as a valuable asset for our descendants. We know their lives will be the better for having our knowledge and understanding to guide them. Some other modern societies do not consider the distant future, preferring to keep those things which are valuable in the here and now. Our society, centuries hence, may also hold the past to be of no use or little interest. It will be their choice.

Cost: free