Update on our ‘Heritage Quest’ Campaign

[updated 09/2020]

SHS launched its ‘HERITAGE QUEST’ (‘HQ’) campaign in November 2018 as part of its efforts to highlight and preserve Sarawak’s cultural heritage assets and to advocate for additional listing and gazetting of heritage items that are not in the list of cultural heritage items already listed by the Government as historic buildings, monuments and sites.

HQ called on the public – through advertisements in local print media and social media – to help identify ‘items of significant heritage interest’ worth being protected. The deadline for submissions was set at end January 2019.

Over the less than three months (from 11 November 2018 to 31 January 2019) 264 submissions were received. 

A working committee was set up and SHS hired an intern to analyse these submissions.

An initial sieving process was applied to the list of submissions to put aside (i) items for which information provided was too scanty (ii) items already gazetted as Sarawak heritage or known to be approved or proposed to be gazetted by the Sarawak Museum Department. 

A list of 14 priority items was then extracted based on perceived levels of heritage significance, rarity and threats. 

Baseline information on these items is being brought together in view of a formal submission of the list to the Sarawak Government.

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The 264 items submitted covered tangible and intangible cultural heritage, as well as some natural heritage as follows:

Most of the submissions received comprise of heritage items located in the wider Kuching. However, there are also a number highlighting heritage items from other divisions of Sarawak, as shown in the table below.