A Turkey experience in the context of survival and protection of cultural heritage: Cappadocia Living Heritage Museum

Abstract

Museums have important roles in the context of protection and survival of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. At this point, the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003) is an international agreement which supports and encourages the protection and survival of cultural heritage. However, attention should be drawn to the subject of the protection-survival and survival-protection of cultural heritages. The protection-survival of cultural heritage is a common classical point of view. However, keeping alive (survival-protection) is an approach which refers to context. In this context, one of the institutions adopting the second approach is living heritage museums where traditional knowledge is recorded and kept alive. This study focuses on the Cappadocia Living Heritage Museum which has been operating in Turkey-Nevşehir since 2019. In the study, both the activities of the museum are included and attention is drawn to the museum’s efforts in surviving and transferring of traditional knowledge in the Covid-19 global epidemic.