The Important Intangible Cultural Properties (Jungyo Muhyeong Munhwajae, Hangul: 중요무형문화재) are aspects of intangible culture that the government of South Korea has officially designated for preservation in accordance with the 1962 Cultural Property Protection Law. They are proclaimed and maintained by South Korea's Cultural Heritage Administration.
The first item so designated was Jongmyo jeryeak, the ancient music and dance performed at the Jongmyo Royal Ancestral Shrine in Seoul; it was proclaimed on December 7, 1964. The most recent, announced on November 16, 2006, was Important Intangible Cultural Property 119, geumbakjang (gold leaf decoration), practiced in Seongnam, Gyeonggi-do.
A similarly named yet distinct designation, "Intangible Cultural Properties," also exists, with 33 items having been proclaimed. These are proclaimed by provinces or cities rather than by the national Cultural Heritage Administration.
The 1962 Cultural Property Protection Law was modelled on the Japanese 1950 Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties, which provides for the designation of Important Intangible Cultural Properties as well as the holders of these craft and performance traditions, known informally as Living National Treasures. These early initiatives at a national level influenced UNESCO in its approach to intangible cultural heritage, leading to the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. As of April 2012, fourteen Korean Intangible Cultural Properties have been inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Famous quotes containing the words important, intangible, cultural and/or properties:
“What seems to us serious, significant and important will, in future times, be forgotten or won’t seem important at all.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“If an addict who has been completely cured starts smoking again he no longer experiences the discomfort of his first addiction. There exists, therefore, outside alkaloids and habit, a sense for opium, an intangible habit which lives on, despite the recasting of the organism.... The dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house.”
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963)
“The rumor of a great city goes out beyond its borders, to all the latitudes of the known earth. The city becomes an emblem in remote minds; apart from the tangible export of goods and men, it exerts its cultural instrumentality in a thousand phases.”
—In New York City, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“A drop of water has the properties of the sea, but cannot exhibit a storm. There is beauty of a concert, as well as of a flute; strength of a host, as well as of a hero.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)