Silk Roads in the Kingdom of Bhutan and the development of a national heritage inventory

A UNESCO project, Support for the Preparation for the World Heritage Serial Nomination of the Silk Roads in South Asia, afforded the opportunity to research evidence for Silk Roads exchange in South Asia. The first part of the paper explores the challenges of archaeology in the Kingdom of Bhutan, located on the southern slopes of the eastern Himalayas. GIS-based approaches to model earlier settlement patterns and trade routes are considered. This led to a discussion with Bhutanese colleagues, in the Division for Conservation of Heritage Sites (DCHS), regarding the need for a digital national heritage inventory: to help manage and protect heritage resources, and to improve the communication of the rich heritage of the country to its people. The second part of this paper explores some of the issues around that debate, and the steps taken to implement the chosen solution, the Getty Conservation Institute/World Monuments Fund ARCHES heritage inventory system.