> -----Original Message-----
> From: Heidi Harendza
> Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2002 2:57 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Lime or lime
> 
> 
> I remember hearing about a temple in Japan (?) that is 
> reconstructed every
> 100 (?) years. The temple is rebuilt using the exact same 
> materials in the
> exact same design every time. Is it less sacred than the 
> pyramids because the
> material isn't original? 

This ultimately brings us back to why do we do preservation: for people. People for whom these places have meaning. What meaning is imbued into the artifact by such a ritual performed by a culture over thousands of years? Could it possibly be that the temple is _more_ valuable precisely because it has been venerated in this fashion by successive generations? And in fact, does this ritual serve to better preserve the construction techniques and principles over time than would preserving the original building for 1,000 years, where all we might be able to do is look at the construction marks and wonder what tool might possibly have made that mark, and how was it used, and what did it look like? 
_______________________________________________________
Dan Becker,  Exec. Dir.   "The workman ought often to
Raleigh Historic           be thinking, and the thinker
Districts Commission       often to be working."
[log in to unmask]                       -- John Ruskin
919/890-3678

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