Can places be considered as artifacts/relics?

Question

so.. can they?

Answer 1

It depends what you mean by "places". Athens (the city) is neither an artefact nor a relic, but it has the Acropolis and other ancient sites which certainly are.

Salisbury Plain in England is not an artefact nor a relic, but it includes numerous prehistoric henges, burial mounds, trackways and other relics of the ancient past.

So the answer is no if you are thinking of places as in general geographic terms. . . . and yes if you are thinking of places as in archaeological sites.

Answer 2

Among historic preservationists artifacts and relics are objects which are generally thought of as different from places or sites. A large historic object such as a house might be referred to as an artifact (a house built in 1775 would be an artifact of the 18th century), so if you consider a house a place, then yes, but in most cases a place is a location for something which may or may not be an artifact.

Answer 3

Yes. There is an international program at the UN that works under UNESCO to identify, select, and designate "World Heritage" sites under serious threat of destruction. Places are its special focus.

http://whc.unesco.org/