List of cultural monuments
In accordance with §10 of the Saxon Monument Protection Act of 3. March 1993, as amended, to create and maintain a list of cultural monuments for archaeological monuments as a public register. In the administrative regulation on lists of cultural monuments dated 08.09.2016 the further procedure is regulated. For this purpose, all the data stored in the “Documentation and Information System Archaeology“ (DIA) in order to examine them for their monumental value and, if necessary, to designate them as cultural monuments. Department 31 at the Saxony State Office for Archaeology is responsible for maintaining the lists of cultural monuments.
In particular, new information needs to be added for the sites created in the course of the rapid inventory of monuments in the 1990s. Modern remote sensing methods such as airborne laser scanning or orthophotos and satellite photos have been available for reassessment for some years now. GIS-based georeferencing of historical maps enables them to be overlaid with current geodata. There is also a wealth of new archaeological aerial photographs in high quality and resolution. A systematic evaluation of these sources, like the results of excavations or surveys, not only leads to a more precise definition of the location and extent of previously recorded sites, but also to the discovery of previously unknown monuments.
What had previously not been included in the inventory, or at best only selectively, is now systematically included in the list of cultural monuments: These include historic gardens and parks as well as windmills and watermills, gallows sites or flocks of birds, traces of acts of war (“battlefields“) and the sites of totalitarian regimes of injustice (z. B. Prisoner of war and forced labor camps).
While districts and municipalities can now access up-to-date lists of archaeological cultural monuments, the qualification and updating process contributes to a constant expansion and improvement of the database. Of course, even the best archaeological list of cultural monuments should not hide the fact that only around a quarter of the original historical monuments are recorded here. 75% still lie unrecognized in the ground, but naturally enjoy the same legal protection as any known monument.
