NFTs, blockchain technology, and human skill can all work together to assist humanity in preventing looting and theft of its irreplaceable cultural heritage.
Archaeologist Mark Altaweel from University College London and computer scientist Adel Khelifi from the University of Abu Dhabi recently announced the creation of a Web3-based verification-as-a-service model for verifying and documenting the provenance and validity of cultural items.
The main idea behind the service, which goes by the name of Salsal, is to connect the world of historical artifacts with an on-chain validation mechanism that cannot be altered or copied.
Altaweel stated Salsal would be supplied specifically to “cultural heritage organizations” in an email interview with Cointelegraph.
For objects with historical significance, there is no formal registry that is acknowledged worldwide as of yet. Despite this, most territories have rules restricting the acquisition, collection, trading, purchasing, and selling of culturally significant objects, particularly when these relics are found on publicly accessible or protected ground.
The whereabouts of some of the most important historical items nevertheless remain unknown. Missing treasures have been lost to time and, in many cases, stolen, including the Honjo Masamune and the Irish Crown Jewels. Before scientists could even categorize them, numerous other artifacts were stolen over the years from historically significant sites.
Salsal’s developers want to allay some of these worries by developing what amounts to a system for detecting, rating, and documenting details about particular artifacts using a variety of tools.
A cultural heritage organization uploads pictures and descriptions to the service after having its collection authenticated. The items are then scored by a panel of specialists using a system akin to that employed by the Museums Association.
The Salsal website states:
“Once it has been established to be genuine, the Collector may convert it into an NFT, or Non Fungible Token. We use NFTs because their data is immutably kept on the blockchain, which enables us to precisely document the transfer of ownership.
In the end, the researchers want to see their service widely used. They picture a paradigm in which curators aspire to have Salsal evaluate their collections as a means of verification; this may be compared to having a valuable item like a comic book graded by a professional validator.
There are already databases with information on historical artifacts, but by requiring sellers and curators to provide provenance, a single database based on an unchangeable blockchain might help prevent theft and looting.
