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The Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties prescribes the necessity of reporting to the concerned authorities any engineering work that takes place on lands which are widely known to contain archaeological and/or historical subsoil. There are similar regulations concerning historic sites newly discovered during engineering and other work, which place the sites under certain protection (Chart I-3-8).

In order to protect buried cultural properties, it is important to know the precise state and location of the archaeological and/or historical subsoil in which they are located, and to publicize this information widely. To this end, the Agency for Cultural Affairs and the local governments have

Chart l-3-8 Process of Protection of Buried Cultural Properties

conducted nationwide investigations on the distribution of buried cultural properties as well as investigations about the distribution and tentative excavations connected with large-scale land development projects. In an effort to ascertain the state and distribution of archaeological and/ or historical subsoil, and to publicize this information, the Agency has compiled a "Map of the National Distribution of Remains" a "Comprehensive Archaeological Pre-excavation Survey" ("Remains Chart") and other information. Information from the "Cultural Property Consciousness Survey" gives an indication as to the current state of informative materials kept on hand by local governments about the existence of archaeological and/ or historical subsoil, and it is, shown in Chart l-3-9.

Chart l-3-9 Current State of Informative Materials kept on Hand by Local Governments about the Existence of Archaeological and/or Historical Subsoil