The museum object as a document

Abstract

The object of the museum is the object of the heritage that, due to its material and its shape, documents the reality in which it was created, in which it lived and with which it entered the present. The properties of the object constitute the characteristics of the documentary value. The most important qualities are: the material, the history, the environment and the importance of the object. The object is the source and transmitter of the information. The idea of a museum object reflects its fundamental identities: conceptual, real and current identities and those that present their vertical sequence in time and space: one structural, the other functional. Since objects exist in a context, they are also the documents of a primary, archaeological and museological context. The primary context is the most frequent. It is in this context that objects assume their document properties. In the archaeological context, there is a tension between historical time and chronological time, therefore, documentary properties reside, while in the museological context the object expresses and communicates its documentary values and protects its acquired identities. Changes in the context regularly occur in one direction and move towards the museological context. An object in the museological context becomes the witness and the testimony of the primary and archaeological context, as well as the source of information for documentation and research. The museological object is the document of the lived reality (Original abstract).