Protecting intangible heritage values through the World Heritage Convention?

The world is scattered with jewels from our collective pasts. From the glittering Mogul mausoleum of the Taj Mahal in the heart of northern India, to the Neolithic stone huts on the remote, windswept island of Orkney in the Outer Hebrides. Material remnants remind us of extinct civilizations, forgotten people and lost worlds. What then of the things for which there are no material remains? What of the memories, ideas, beliefs and events that shaped the lives of these civilizations and of our own? What of this intangible heritage? We can record, preserve and protect for posterity the material leavings; can we do the same for the shadows that form the intangible associations with these places?