Key:ref:mhs

Origins

This key ref:mhs (Monuments Historiques et Sites) is a French external reference, used in France to hold the Mérimée's id as defined by the French Ministère de la Culture.

In France, The *attribut ref:mhs is used to set the registration number of the Mérimée database.

This attribut is used in combination with heritage=* and heritage:operator=*

• If the monument is inscrit au Patrimoine mondiale de l'Humanité, by UNESCO, we use this values heritage=1 + heritage:operator=whc + ref:whc=* (identifiant UNESCO) + ref:mhs=* (identifiant Monuments historiques et sites, généralement PA suivi de chiffres)
  On peut ajouter les informations whc:inscription_date=* et mhs:inscription_date=*.
  Exemple 190572 190572 fiche Unesco, fiche Mérimée
• If the monument is classé monument historique, we use these values heritage=2 + heritage:operator=mhs + ref:mhs=* (identifiant Monuments historiques et sites, usually PA followed by numbers).
  We can add this information mhs:inscription_date=*.
  Example : 108772 108772 fiche Mérimée
• If the monument is inscrit aux monuments historiques without been "classé", we use these values heritage=3 + heritage:operator=mhs + ref:mhs=* (identifiant Monuments historiques et sites, PA or IA followed by numbers)
• When the monument has just been étude de patrimoine without inscription, we use the attribute ref:mhs=* (identifiant Monuments historiques et sites, usually IA followed by numbers)

Evolution in practice

Resources listed or classified as “historic monuments” actually belong to two databases of the Ministry of Culture:

• architectural heritage objects, recorded in the Mérimée database (references PAxxxxxx, IAxxxxxx)
• movable heritage objects, recorded in the Palissy database (references PMxxxxxx, IMxxxxxx).

As OSM is not primarily intended to map objects that are not reasonably fixed and permanent, the reference adopted for the ref:mhs attribute was naturally that of the Mérimée database.

Over time, it became apparent that many movable objects from the Palissy database nevertheless had a legitimate place in OSM. Examples include roadside crosses, fountains, funerary slabs, certain statues or statuary groups, etc.

Rather than creating a second value alongside heritage:operator=mhs for these objects, and since Mérimée and Palissy identifiers do not overlap, the natural tendency has been to map these movable heritage objects using heritage:operator=mhs + heritage=2 (classified) or 3 (listed) + ref:mhs=Palissy database reference.

A side effect of this evolution is that it disrupts applications that automatically generate a link to a website from a ref=* attribute (for example Tag2Link), which, without adaptation, point to Mérimée when given a Palissy reference. They should instead point to Mérimée for PAxxx and IAxxxx references, and to Palissy for PMxxx and IMxxx references.