Abstract
Abstract. The ancient oasis-city of Al Ain in Abu Dhabi Emirate still retains the most important and outstanding cultural heritage of United Arab Emirates (UAE). The larger area of Abu Dhabi Emirate comprised of archaeological sites, cultural landscapes and historic buildings dating back to 3rd millennium to the recent pre-oil era. Traditional materials like stone, earth and palm wood were used in combination with local construction methods. For the last seven years the newly formed Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi)1 has been actively involved in conservation of built heritage in Abu Dhabi Emirate with the help of its Conservation Section. Documentation prior to any conservation and restoration works is considered as a basic pre-requisite for understanding an historic building or site. It is a process which continues during the conservation of any monument and is the only accurate tool for recording information in order to understand the structure, ultimately leading to the management of cultural heritage. Application and use of tools, ranging from basic manual techniques to 3D laser scanning, based on the best practices and international guidelines the exercise will help in establishing a documentation lab with standard procedures, specifications and tools for the documentation and monitoring the built heritage of Abu Dhabi Emirate. This paper will discuss a range of case studies and will demonstrate how documentation and monitoring of the built heritage has augmented the various conservation initiatives on a variety of building types.
Highlights
One of the major aims of this paper is to highlight the importance of creating base records to address a variety of documentation needs while conserving the built heritage in the Abu Dhabi Emirates of United Arab Emirates (UAE)
With recent inclusion of the cultural sites of Al Ain to the UNESCO’s World Heritage List (WHL), this camp provided TCA Abu Dhabi an opportunity to showcase the architectural heritage in Abu Dhabi and their efforts in conserving it
The Conservation Section of TCA Abu Dhabi has carried out an exercise of identifying the threats and needs of the site in August 2010 and later implemented a monitoring system
Summary
One of the major aims of this paper is to highlight the importance of creating base records to address a variety of documentation needs while conserving the built heritage in the Abu Dhabi Emirates of UAE. This will emphasize the approach of documentation unit of Conservation Section in applying and localizing the international guidelines and the best practices in documentation. The case studies presented in the paper will showcase the approach, tools, techniques and the product in documenting various sites for study, monitoring and condition mapping purposes. These case studies were documented by using a range of simple tools and advanced tools like 3D laser scanners
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