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2nd Technical Course: Inventory and Documentation of Immovable Cultural Heritage
South Africa 2004

Place: Njelele, Umtata & Johannesburg, South Africa
Dates: 5 – 30 July
Partner: SAHRA, Nelson Mandela Museum

Objective: The main objectives of the workshop:

• Develop best practices for inventorying immovable cultural heritage at both national and local levels.
• Develop awareness of techniques and instruments used for basic recording and surveying of immovable heritage properties in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Develop a simple but useful condition assessment documentation of immovable heritage properties in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Develop best practices for archiving records related to immovable cultural heritage.
  To provide a forum for sharing experiences in the development of documentation and inventory systems.
  

Structure: This technical course was designed as a complementary to the AFRICA 2009 three-month Regional Course and focused on technical issues rather than management aspects. The technical course focused inventoryand documentation with emphases on recording, instrumentation, surveying, condition assessment and archiving of records. The course consisted of a series of hands-on practical exercises geared towards developing competence in inventorying and documentation of both tangible and intangible aspects of immovable heritage in Sub-Saharan Africa Apart from discussing the principles of inventory and documentation participants were introduced to the discussions on databases and archiving records.

The fieldwork component was designed as hands on exercise. The participants worked on three types of sites, a dry stone walled, Rock Art and places of memory sites. The field exercise was aimed at:

• Inventorying the site
• Defining the extent of the site
• Creating a record that will enable the site to be monitored
  

Results:

• 22 participants from 18 countries attended the workshop and shared experiences.
• Three assistant coordinators were former participants of the Africa 2009 programme
• The two resource parsons were former participants of the Regional Course in Mombasa.
• Five sites were documented, and photographic record of the fives sites were made
• Detailed condition survey and mapping was done on three sites.
  

For more information on the course, see the final report (Pdf 700 KB).