Data Sources

MESA Cultural Heritage Encyclopedia draws from three primary institutional data sources, each selected for their authority, comprehensiveness, and open access licensing.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Open Access

The Met Open Access initiative provides data on over 470,000 artworks in its permanent collection. We filter this dataset to focus on departments and cultures relevant to the Middle East and South Asia region: Islamic Art, Egyptian Art, Ancient Near Eastern Art, Asian Art (South and Central Asian works), and the Costume Institute (textiles and fashion from the MESA region).

Each artwork record includes: title, artist information, date of creation, medium, dimensions, classification, department, geographic origin, and credit line. Works in the public domain include high-resolution images released under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license.

UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH)

The UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity catalogs living traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature, and traditional craftsmanship. We include all entries associated with MESA region countries.

UNESCO World Heritage Convention (WHC)

The World Heritage List includes cultural and natural properties of outstanding universal value. We include all sites located in MESA region countries, with data on inscription date, criteria, geographic coordinates, and area.

Data Processing

Filtering

Met Museum records are filtered by department and by culture, country, and artist nationality fields matching MESA region identifiers. UNESCO records are filtered by country ISO codes. This process is deterministic and reproducible.

Entity Extraction

We aggregate artwork records into entity pages: artists, cultures, historical periods, artistic mediums, and geographic origins. These aggregations are computed directly from the filtered dataset — no external data is introduced.

Content Generation

Post content is assembled programmatically from structured data fields. Descriptive text is composed from the data itself. No AI-generated creative writing or speculation is included.

Update Frequency

Our dataset is synchronized weekly with the Met Museum Open Access data and monthly with UNESCO APIs. When source data changes, affected entries are automatically updated.