Technologies for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage—A Systematic Review of the Literature

Abstract

This work establishes the technological elements that have enabled the preservation, promotion, and dissemination of tangible and intangible cultural heritage in the period from 2018 to 2022. For this, a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was conducted in the scientific databases Scopus, Science Direct, IEEE and Web of Science, which facilitated the identification of 146 articles related to the topic. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the journals, authors and topics was carried out, detailing the important variables required to establish the sought-out elements; for this purpose, the following were quantified in the papers: type, topic, categorization, country, and language; in the publications, the type of heritage chosen, the place of the heritage and the type of intervention were investigated. The number of publications reporting the use of some type of technology was also identified, finding that 70% of them show a technological approach to preserve cultural heritage, while 30% refer to other types of interventions. The technologies reported to be used the most are 3D digital technologies (44% of those showing technological applications), augmented reality or virtual reality, henceforth AR/VR (15%).