Within this presentation, in the most generic sense an object is any physical or conceptual thing that needs to be discussed, examined or described. This can include complete cultural heritage objects such as paintings, sculptures, books & manuscripts, shards of pot, or even whole buildings. A specific object can also be a fragment, section or part of a complete cultural heritage object, such as a painting stretcher, scraps of paper, pieces of broken sculpture, and flakes of glaze/paint, or even analytical samples that have been deliberately removed. Actual museum objects, like paintings, are composed of several different sub-objects, such as paint layers, canvas, nail, etc. All of these different sub-objects can be described individually, if required.

Within this presentation, in the most generic sense a creator/actor is any person, groups or organisation involved with or responsible for the activities in a given event. This can include artists, authors and even conservation scientists who might take a sample from an object or carry out analytical work.

Further events in an object’s life can cover a wide range of activities, including the commissioning of the work, its movement, any alterations or conservation treatments, additional changes of ownership, etc. Describing, in detail, the full range of these further events goes beyond the scope of this presentation, but the generic relationships common to most of them have been described.

Providing a full list of all the possible types of objects and creators that may be considered within conservation documentation goes well beyond the scope of this presentation. Where appropriate reference to and use of existing vocabularies xviii will be used within this work-package to define or identify these types.