Our aim is to ensure knowledge of the world’s cultural diversity is not lost. Our grants support the documentation of endangered cultural heritage, ensuring it is available to future generations.
We recognize that change is part of the historical processes that shape our cultures, and that true loss of heritage occurs only if we miss the opportunity to record it. Much of the world’s cultural and historical heritage remains poorly known, receives little protection, and is at risk of erasure, leaving our perception of history and culture impoverished and distorted.
Our grants support digital documentation of unique written materials, artefacts, sites, practices and languages which are poorly recorded and under imminent threat. We primarily fund documentation outside Europe and North America, where the need is greatest and resources are most limited. Our projects create partnerships with local organizations and institutions able to secure long term preservation and free access to the records.
Focus Areas
Archives and manuscripts
Our grants help digitize at-risk collections. These can include anything written, from ancient religious texts to official state documents, as well as photographs, audio and video recordings, and even born-digital material. Since 2002 we have supported initiatives that together have digitized and published online more than 10.5 million pages of materials that would not have been available otherwise.
Intangible culture
We support documentation of endangered languages and cultural practices. Our long-standing programme to record at-risk languages has so far documented more than 450 languages around the world. We also help to digitally record endangered traditional practices, knowledge and skills.
Heritage sites
We help to document archaeological sites and buildings. We currently support projects that document heritage sites in Sub-Saharan Africa, Pakistan and Northern India, the Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, China and Nepal. The documentation varies from records based on satellite imagery, to extensive on-the-ground documentation and 3D scans of buildings and the objects they contain.
The rich archaeological heritage of the Middle East and North Africa is under threat from agricultural development, urban expansion, warfare and looting.
Programme:Preserving endangered culture
Focus:Heritage sites
Grantee:University of Oxford, School of Archaeology
Arthur manages Arcadia’s cultural grants. He was previously a research fellow at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and a teaching fellow at SOAS. He holds a PhD from Columbia University’s Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, and an AB from Princeton University’s Department of Classics.
Dr Mike Heyworth
Consultant to Cultural Programmes
Mike works as a consultant as part of the culture team. He is an archaeologist by training and was previously the executive director of the Council for British Archaeology. He is now a consultant working with a range of archaeology and heritage groups across the UK. He holds a PhD from the University of Bradford in archaeological science.