Cultural heritage shapes our everyday lives. It surrounds us in Europe’s towns and cities, natural landscapes and archaeological sites. It is not only found in literature, art and objects, but also in the crafts we learn from our ancestors, the stories we tell our children, the food we enjoy and the films we watch and recognise ourselves in.
Cultural heritage includes
• Buildings, monuments, artefacts, archives, clothing, artworks, books, machines, historic towns, archaeological sites etc. – (tangible heritage)
• Practices, representations, knowledge, skills objects and cultural expressions that people value such as festivals. It also includes languages and oral traditions, performing arts, and traditional crafts, etc. – (intangible heritage)
• Landscapes – geographical areas where the natural resources show evidence of the practices and traditions of people
• Resources that were created in a digital form (for example digital art and animation) or that have been digitalised as a way to preserve them (including text, images, video,
and records) – (digital heritage).