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association, also agreeing on the advantages of internal Value as an important segment of cultural heritage
specialization, including building a scientific facility for representing by agricultural production landscapes.
breeding and creating the conditions for improved yields.
This reality of a collective concentration of capacities, With its comprehensible tangible and intangible attributes
sharing of technology and know-how helped to maintain of exceptional values, the nominated property Žatec
continuity even in those decades when national and and the Landscape of Saaz Hops is comparable to the
ownership conditions in the former Czechoslovakia productive agricultural cultural landscapes that have
changed radically after the Second World War. With the been already inscribed on the World Heritage List, but
knowledge of the exceptional quality of Saaz hops, forms represent the heritage of the growing and processing of
of hop processing, improvements in plant care during other crops. Based on the thematically broad scope of this
growth and of the dried hops for the purpose of trade, comparative analysis, we can sum up that differences from
were further developed as well as the picking of hop other productive landscapes show the quite specific kind of
cones on specific locally invented machines, which are heritage of mankind, that relate to cultivation, processing
still manufactured in Žatec in mechanization companies. and trading a commodity that needed highly organized
Even after further socio-economic changes, the model of
3. Justification for Inscription of sharing the responsibility, costs and revenues from with local climatic and soil conditions and local building
coexistence of both rural and urban environments and gave
them quite unique character. Visual impact of preserved
centralization and joint cooperative management was
heritage on such a landscape is closely connected both
adopted, of course on the basis of different principles
sales. The story of a cultural landscape specializing in the
traditions which makes the whole property unmistakable
with other cultural landscapes.
cultivation and processing of hops is therefore a unique
testimony to the continuous improvement of mutually
From the aforementioned more detailed particular aspects
connected and still human labour-intensive practices,
commented on in this comparative analysis, and indeed
which are maintained by trust in the quality of the local
from the description of the nominated property, it can be
natural environment, with the knowledge maintained of
concluded that no parallel of the cultural landscape type was
all the practices and last but not least with the necessary
found that would represent the same complex of specifics
dose of local patriotism, reinforced by the retention of
traditions associated with the main growing season.
and visual qualities in the fields, purpose buildings in villages
and in the town related to crops production. The impact on
built heritage is different from other cultural landscapes:
210 The appearance of village farm buildings intended for
3.2.c GENERAL SUMMARY drying hops, their distance from the hop fields, connections
OF THE COMPARISON to local roads and their location within settlements, but
also their size, construction, the building materials used
There is no property both on the World Heritage and in particular the appearance of their roofs, all of these
List and on the Tentative List that represents the are based on the need for high-quality, and quick drying of
distinctive architectural, structural, landscape and this crop, because any long exposure to air (more than a few
urban heritage associated with hop growing and hop hours) brings with it the risk of deterioration.
processing. So far, no extensive materials have been
prepared on which this comparative analysis could be Žatec and the Landscape of Saaz Hops shows diverse
based, the technical literature on the matter of hops aspects of hop growing, harvesting, the drying process,
deals mainly with hops properties. The topic of hop packaging and commerce from medieval times to the
structures and their differences and similarities in the present. The continuity of similar land use, technical
various countries where hops are grown are described practices and commercial purposes through time is clearly
mainly on local level. But other agricultural production shown by tangible features, such as hop fields, technical
landscapes contain interesting parallels even when constructions and warehouses of diverse types, farms and
their own image is completely different, and they villages, housing and buildings related to hop trading elites,
are located in different morphological and climatic related industrial activities and social/religious practices
conditions. The study of the nature of selected cultural (e.g. the synagogue as witness of the former Jewish
landscapes inscribed on the World Heritage List and on community, which included leaders of the international hop
Tentative List is confirmed both by the principles in the trade).
"Global Strategy" for compiling a representative and
credible WHL and the idea formulated by P.J. Fowler From the comparison of the main hop growing regions
on the need "to carry out regional thematic studies on and the structures preserved in them related to hop
farming landscapes with a view to obtaining a global processing which can be regarded as the most important
overview of important cultural landscapes resulting part of this comparison, it was clearly shown that with its
from the commonest land use in the world" (see above). two complementary components the nominated property
This approach also contains the potential for the perfectly represents its type of a cultural landscape. In
development of thematic international cooperation none of the compared hop growing regions mentioned
in the field of preservation of Outstanding Universal was the equivalent found of the connection of a productive