Historical accesses to UNESCO cultural heritages: engineering geology for the sustainable conservation of Petra Siq

Abstract

Cultural heritage represents the legacy of the human kind on the planet earth. It is evidence of millennia of adaptation of humans to the environment. Cultural heritage can be intangible (e.g., traditional knowledge, customs, ritual practises or beliefs) and tangible, the latter including various categories of places, from cultural landscapes and sacred sites to archaeological complexes, individual architectural or artistic monuments and historic urban centres. The most world wide representative Cultural and Natural Heritages are included within “UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage”. They are the flagship of a large number of monuments and sites diffused at both national and local level. The sites and remains are not always in equilibrium with the environment. They are continuously impacted and weathered by several internal and external factors, both natural and human-induced, with rapid and/or slow onset. These include major sudden natural hazards, such as earthquakes or extreme meteorological events, but also slow, cumulative processes such as the erosion of rocks, compounded by the effect of climate change, without disregarding the role of humans, especially in conflict situations. Cultural Heritages required proper infrastructures to be used by local populations. Such infrastructures are part of the heritage itself and nowadays need adequate attention for a sustainable conservation and maintenance. Typical example is the Siq of Petra (Jordan). In the present paper the role of engineering geology and earth science in general is described for the conservation and management of a masterpiece of cultural properties such as the Siq of Petra. The relevance and potential of these areas of study was not fully appreciated in the past. At present, however, their contribution is increasingly acknowledged as the need for an inter-disciplinary approach, which would bring together art history, science, management and socio-economic concerns, has become more and more apparent. This paper will focus on the relevance of modern technologies for investigation and monitoring, as a fundamental step for a safeguarding project that have to enhance, as much as possible, traditional knowledge and local sustainable practises, in conservation techniques.