An Analysis of the Iran related documents of the past 100 years with the aim of examining the relation between value and conservation in cultural heritage

Cultural heritage, as a trace of human throughout history, has several values that can be explored and redefined subject to the requirements of different societies and cultures. Lack of attention to the values have led to several problems in the preservation process. One possible way to investigate the roots of this problem is to examine the attitudes of various stakeholders towards cultural heritage from the past to the present. The focus of this study is on the study of related documents in the country, the pathology of attitudes towards cultural heritage, and, in particular, the relation between types of heritage values and preservation approaches. To this end, five research instruments were uses (Civil and Development Programs, Laws and Regulations, Statute of Intervening Organizations and Institutions, Description of Conservation Services, and Interviews with Theory and Practice Experts) to investigate the pathology of the process of heritage resources conservation. Simultaneous study of these five sources and investigation of the types of values and protective approaches in each document and their possible temporal overlap are among innovations of this study. The research methodology was applied-practical based on research questions. Data collection was carried out using library-based and documentary techniques, as well as interview. Studies on the documents indicated that in most of the documents, we can see the lack of attention to the concept of cultural heritage values and, consequently, value-based preservation approaches.