Cultural heritage preservation by using blockchain technologies

Abstract

Ubiquitous digitization enables promising options for cultural heritage preservation. Therefore, a new approach is presented that considers deployment scenarios by linking heritage science to tourism. Such an approach is necessary because neither technology nor society views can be treated separately to obtain deployable solutions of a wider social, and even national importance. Clearly, while the traditional approaches to cultural heritage preservation will remain a gold standard, they will be increasingly complemented by digital preservation techniques. Thus, based on practical implementations and lessons learnt in other areas, this multidisciplinary framework paper analyses existing disruptive information technologies deployments. In line with the findings it presents a novel technological architecture tailored to the needs of cultural heritage preservation that deploys an open blockchain architecture. The architecture preserves the advantages of traditional blockchains, which made this technology so important, while enabling energy efficient implementations that can be deployed in mobile applications. By additionally using the contribution-ware principle it links it to tourism, where the identification of users focused incentives and business models play a central role. It is obvious that tourism is a good candidate in such preservation efforts due to the organic links between it and cultural heritage and can support further developments in the heritage preservation domain.

Blockchain revolution in the tourism industry: A semi-systematic literature review

“…These strategies must contemplate the contextual factors that condition the operation of blockchain as a lack of infrastructure (Pomelnikov, 2021). Development of further empirical research in emerging countries (Khan et al, 2021) or new or potential tourism sectors such as Mindful Tourism or Cultural heritage preservation (Trček, 2022).…”

Salsal: blockchain for vetting cultural object collections

“…Others have also seen blockchain as a way to empower cultural or art providers by creating digital currencies and means to manage their welfare outside of the conventional art market [26]. Trček [27] suggests that blockchain can help preserve cultural heritage by providing a decentralized and immutable system that can authenticate cultural objects and prevent fraud. Overall, there has been more use of blockchain in fine art and some cultural industries rather than other aspects of cultural heritage, such as museums and object collections used by the wider public [28,29].…”

Fostering Directions for Digital Technology Adoption in Sustainable and Circular Fashion: Toward the Circular Fashion-Tech Lab

“…Initiatives engaging with the social dimension prioritize certifications and adherence to social standards, addressing social concerns transparently through digital means [13]. Those focused on cultural aspects prioritize digitization for cultural heritage preservation [88]. Some cases operate at the convergence of these areas.…”