The Danish Agency for Culture and Palaces (Danish : Slots- og Kulturstyrelsen) is an agency under the aegis of the Danish Ministry of Culture. The agency carries out the cultural policies of the Danish government within the visual and performing arts, music, literature, museums, historical and cultural heritage, broadcasting, libraries and all types of printed and electronic media. It works internationally in all fields, and increased internationalisation of Danish arts and cultural life is a top priority. The Danish Agency for Culture was founded on 1 January 2002 when the Danish Heritage Agency, the Danish Arts Agency and the Danish Agency for Libraries and Media merged. The Danish Agency for Culture and Palaces was founded on 1 January 2016 by a fusion of the Danish Agency for Culture and the Danish agency Styrelsen for Slotte & Kulturejendomme .
Ancient sites and monuments include burial mounds, rock carvings, runic stones, road tracks, military fortifications, castles, ruins, etc. Underwater sites, including shipwrecks more than a hundred years old, are also covered. Construction sites often reveal ancient settlements and burial finds. Many towns have cultural layers from Medieval times to the present.
All sites and monuments are protected from destruction under the Danish Museum Act which is administered by the Heritage Agency.
The Heritage Agency does not own any sites and monuments itself, though it manages the restoration of selected megalithic tombs and Medieval ruins. [1] To the extent that the State owns listed buildings, they are owned and administrated by the Palaces and Properties Agency.
There are more than 9,000 listed buildings in Denmark while another 300,000 have been deemed "worthy of preservation". [2] The Heritage Agency is responsible for listed buildings, while the local authorities are responsible for buildings worthy of preservation. Most listed and preserved buildings are privately owned.
Status as listed is not restricted to very old or very grand buildings. Eligibility extends to everything from castles and mansions to town halls, prisons, farmhouses, factories, warehouses and filling stations.
The State owns approximately 10 museums (some of which have departments spread out over many locations), and approximately 120 are approved to receive State subsidies. The Heritage Agency does not run any museums itself, but provides funding and supervises all State-subsidised museums and most of the State-owned museums. These museums are subject to the Danish Museum Act and must comply with a number of its requirements in order to receive funding.
A State-subsidised museum can be an independent institution or it can be owned by one or more local authorities or by an association designed to run it. A private museum cannot be approved for State subsidies. [3]
The National Register of Sites and Monuments (Danish: Kulturhistorisk Centralregister) is a register of all known sites, monuments and archaeological finds. It holds information on more than 165,000 sites, of which some 7,000 are shipwrecks and submarine Stone Age settlements.
In 1873, the National Museum of Denmark embarked on a project to map all burial mounds, megalithic tombs, runic stones and other archaeological sites in Denmark. This mapping is the basis of the current digital register.
Under the Danish Museum Act, museums have an obligation to report new finds and activities to the Heritage Agency. This increases the register considerably every year. The register can be accessed here: "Sites and Monuments". It is in Danish only. [4]
Museums owned or subsidised by the State must report their collections to two national registers maintained by the Heritage Agency. Both registers are accessible online and hold information on the cultural heritage museums' collections of objects and materials, and the works held by art museums. [5]
Established in 2004, the register of the cultural heritage museums' collections holds information on approximately two million objects. The register provides a national overview that makes it easier for the museums to coordinate and prioritise their investigations and collections. [5]
The central register of works of art in Danish museums and collections was established in 1985 and went online in 1996. The register holds information on approximately 100,000 works by Danish and international artists. In addition, it provides access to a digital edition of Weilbach's Dictionary of Danish artists and international artists who have worked in Denmark. Link to the Art in Danish Museums database here (partly in English). [5]
An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It might be in public or private ownership, be accessible to all, or have restrictions in place. Although primarily concerned with visual art, art museums are often used as a venue for other cultural exchanges and artistic activities, such as lectures, jewelry, performance arts, music concerts, or poetry readings. Art museums also frequently host themed temporary exhibitions, which often include items on loan from other collections.
A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea.
A tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or kurgans, and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones built for various purposes, may also originally have been a tumulus.
A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, historical, political, technical or architectural importance. Some of the first monuments were dolmens or menhirs, megalithic constructions built for religious or funerary purposes. Examples of monuments include statues, (war) memorials, historical buildings, archaeological sites, and cultural assets. If there is a public interest in its preservation, a monument can for example be listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Jelling stones are massive carved runestones from the 10th century, found at the town of Jelling in Denmark. The older of the two Jelling stones was raised by King Gorm the Old in memory of his wife Thyra. The larger of the two stones was raised by King Gorm's son, Harald Bluetooth, in memory of his parents, celebrating his conquest of Denmark and Norway, and his conversion of the Danes to Christianity. The runic inscriptions on these stones are considered the best known in Denmark. In 1994, the stones, in addition to the burial mounds and small church nearby, were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as an unparalleled example of both pagan and Christian Nordic culture.
An ancient monument can refer to any early or historical manmade structure and/or architecture. Certain ancient monuments are of cultural importance for nations and become symbols of international recognition, including the ruins of Baalbek on Lebanese currency, the Angkor Wat on Cambodian currency and the Great Wall of China on the Chinese currency. There are some countries that display ancient buildings as symbols on their coats of arms as a way to affirm national identity. In this way, ancient monuments in the modern world are used as icons to represent a country. The importance of ancient monuments extends to cultural heritage and how the people of a nation or city identify themselves.
Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by society.
Monument historique is a designation given to some national heritage sites in France. It may also refer to the state procedure in France by which national heritage protection is extended to a building, a specific part of a building, a collection of buildings, a garden, a bridge, or other structure, because of their importance to France's architectural and historical cultural heritage. Both public and privately owned structures may be listed in this way, as well as movable objects. As of 2012 there were 44,236 monuments listed.
The Museum of Tropical Queensland is part of the Queensland Museum Network and is located in Townsville, Queensland, Australia. Museum of Tropical Queensland delivers a snapshot of North Queensland with galleries telling the stories of World Heritage-listed rainforests, reefs and the tragic tale of HMS Pandora, the ship sent to capture the Bounty mutineers.
Heritage Malta is the Maltese national agency for museums, conservation practice and cultural heritage. Created by the Cultural Heritage Act, enacted in 2002, the national agency replaced the former Museums Department.
Historic England is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked with protecting the historic environment of England by preserving and listing historic buildings, scheduling ancient monuments, registering historic parks and gardens and by advising central and local government.
Cultural heritage of Serbia represents the totality of national cultural heritage in Serbia as defined by Serbia's Law on Cultural Goods. Some of national heritage sites in Serbia are also World Heritage Sites.
A Cultural Property is administered by the Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs, and includes tangible properties ; intangible properties ; folk properties both tangible and intangible; monuments historic, scenic and natural; cultural landscapes; and groups of traditional buildings. Buried properties and conservation techniques are also protected. Together these cultural properties are to be preserved and utilized as the heritage of the Japanese people.
The Danish Museum of Photographic Art is in Odense, Denmark. It is the only national Danish art museum dedicated specifically to photographic art. It was founded in 1987 as part of the Brandts International Center for Art and Culture.
The Philippine Registry of Cultural Property, abbreviated as PRECUP is a national registry of the Philippine Government used to consolidate in one record all cultural property that are deemed important to the cultural heritage, tangible and intangible, of the Philippines. On June 11, 2018, the entries in the newly updated PRECUP was at 3,921. Additionally, 1,259 out of 1,715 LGUs, or 73 percent of LGUs have established local cultural inventories (LCI).
A heritage asset is an item that has value because of its contribution to a nation's society, knowledge and/or culture. They are usually physical assets, but some countries also use the term in relation to intangible social and spiritual inheritance. The term is found in several contexts:
The archaeology of Indonesia is the study of the archaeology of the archipelagic realm that today forms the nation of Indonesia, stretching from prehistory through almost two millennia of documented history. The ancient Indonesian archipelago was a geographical maritime bridge between the political and cultural centers of Ancient India and Imperial China, and is notable as a part of ancient Maritime Silk Road.
National Historical and Cultural Reserve "Hetman's Capital" is a Ukrainian historical and cultural reserve of national importance.
Russia began an invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War that began in 2014. It is the largest military attack in Europe since World War II. During the fighting, many pieces of Ukrainian cultural heritage were either destroyed, damaged, or put at risk due to the widespread destruction across the country. This deliberate destruction and looting of over 500 Ukrainian cultural heritage sites is considered a war crime and has been described by Ukraine's Minister of Culture as cultural genocide.