The destructive Culture or destructed by culture...! A study on cultural practices and expressions as the primary causes for damages in historic-cultural properties? A case study of Iran

Natural deterioration is only one of the identified threats to historic properties. There is a
broader range of threats including natural and climatic effects and also human activities.
The human acts are not limited to such anti-social behaviors that in behavioral sociology are
known as vandalism; they also include culturally approved acts such as cultural rituals, etc.
that are truly valued by their entire society. Sometimes these cultural acts could directly or
indirectly cause damages to historic properties. This raises an important dilemma vis-à-vis
to the preservation of cultural heritage and its tangible and intangible values: What should
we preserve, the cultural property or the cultural practice? How is it possible to prevent
damages to historic properties, but also to be able to preserve cultural practices that are
essential characters to Cultural Landscape richness? In the preservation of cultural heritage,
and more particularly those subjects related to the cultural landscape, understanding the
integrity of the historic property and its related cultural beliefs support its success and
authenticity.
This paper considers three such kinds of cultural behaviors from the wide variety of Iran’s
cultural geography and analyzes their psychological, social and traditional aspects in order
to examine the possibility of multi-preservation methods for these difficult cases