Abstract
This paper examines an aspect of a value-based approach to underground built heritage (UBH). A key tool for the manager of any built heritage today is the mapping of its manifold values for different audiences, to inform their management strategy. This paper first reviews an important paradigm shift that has occurred in the humanities and in cultural heritage management, leading to the recognition of the centrality of the worldviews and lived experience of the different members that make up communities. Drawing on a selection of examples from the literature, it then demonstrates how many UBH sites across a wide spectrum of cultures acquired cosmological and cultic value and significance in a way that is qualitatively different to most built heritage sites above ground. The spectrum of challenges that this poses to the UBH site manager is then outlined by reviewing literature on a selection of UBH examples, from prehistoric archaeological sites to living religious sites. Some key guiding principles are proposed for the management of these different scenarios. Culturally sensitive management that respects the existing value systems of local communities is indispensable wherever such communities are present. Decision-makers need to be keenly aware of these value systems and need to recognize, empower, and complement existing traditional systems of stewardship.
Highlights
One of the distinctive characteristics of underground cultural heritage is that it is often a place of close encounters with the geology, hydrology, and hydrogeology of a locality.Even in highly urbanised settings, underground spaces often provide opportunities for direct encounters with these features of the natural world
The rationale of this paper is to examine some of the implications of these distinctive characteristics of underground environments for their practical management today
It should be emphasised that the intention here is not to attempt an exhaustive description or inventory of possible characteristics that may be encountered in underground built heritage sites
Summary
Even in highly urbanised settings, underground spaces often provide opportunities for direct encounters with these features of the natural world. Dorothy Vitaliano in 1968 is ‘geomythology’, which refers to the significance that geology may acquire in traditional belief systems. It has been succinctly defined by Adrienne Mayor as ‘the study of etiological oral traditions created by pre-scientific cultures to explain—in poetic metaphor and mythological imagery—geological phenomena such as volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, fossils, and other natural features of the landscape’ [1]. The significance of underground environments in such traditions will be readily apparent, and will be illustrated with a range of examples below. In a wide range of cultures ranging from classical antiquity to medieval Christianity, underground environments are associated with beliefs about an underworld that is held to be the cosmological realm of the dead
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