Inventory of Cultural Heritage

The inventory of cultural heritage is, within the Portuguese legal order, the instrument for the identification and recording of cultural assets, distinct from and complementary to classification. The 2001 Cultural Heritage Framework Law establishes two forms of protection for assets of cultural interest — classification and inventorying —, each of which gives rise to its own heritage register. Whereas classification recognises an exceptional value in an asset and imposes upon it a demanding safeguarding regime, inventorying aims first and foremost to know, document and make known the universe of existing cultural assets.

Legal definition and purpose

Under the terms of Article 19 of Law no. 107/2001 of 8 September, inventorying consists of the “systematic, up-to-date and broadly exhaustive survey of the cultural assets existing at the national level, with a view to their identification”. Article 61 of the same law specifies that inventoried assets enjoy a protection intended to prevent their loss or deterioration, to support their conservation and to make their existence known.

Inventorying is thus distinguished from the heritage classification system in that it does not, as a rule, entail the more intense restrictions that fall upon classified assets — such as administrative easements, restrictions on transfer or reinforced conservation obligations. Its purpose is above all cognitive and documentary: to ensure that the State and society know the heritage holdings and can monitor their condition.

Inventory and classification: two distinct registers

The law organises the protection of cultural assets into two autonomous heritage registers: the classification heritage register and the inventory heritage register. An asset may be only inventoried, only classified, or both inventoried and classified at the same time. Inventorying does not constitute a mandatory stage of the procedure for classifying an asset, but it frequently serves as the body of knowledge from which assets deserving of classification are identified.

This dual structure applies to immovable, movable and intangible heritage. In the case of intangible cultural heritage, inventorying takes on a central role, since the only legally provided form of protection at the national level is inscription in the respective inventory, rather than classification.

Instruments and databases

The operation of the inventory relies on information systems and dedicated technical standards. The inventories of movable and intangible heritage are disseminated through the Matriz databases, which make available to the public the inventory records of museum holdings and of inventoried cultural expressions. The definition of inventory standards and the maintenance of these systems are competences of the central heritage authority, currently Património Cultural, I.P., successor to the Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage.

The inventory is, by its nature, a dynamic instrument in permanent updating: new assets are continually identified, described and recorded, reflecting the open and inexhaustible character of the concept of cultural heritage. This logic of continuous survey forms part of the long trajectory of the heritage institutions in Portugal, which over more than a century have built up the methods and documentary holdings that today underpin knowledge of the national heritage.