Country Summary for BURKINA FASO

Definitions

The export of traditional and ancient art or craft objects, notably the categories of art described below, which bear witness to the cultural patrimony of Burkina Faso in its original form, or as a copy, is subject to the control of the Administration of Artistic and Cultural Patrimony:
(1) masks and ornaments from traditional dances;
(2) ancient statues, statuettes, dolls, locks, and sculpted posts;
(3) traditional furnishings such as stepladders, chairs, seats and head rests;
(4) ancient utensils such as pots, bowls, spoons, ladles and plates;
(5) arms such as clubs, arrows, quivers, lances, sabers, knives, fusillades and scepters;
(6) ancient textiles and leathers;
(7) musical instruments such as tambourines, flutes, horns and xylophones (balafons);
(8) ancient or contemporary games of a traditional nature. (1985 Decree No. 85-493, Art. 1)

Public or private moveable or immoveable goods, including natural monuments and sites as well as ancient posts or mineral deposits, whose preservation or conservations presents a historic, artistic, scientific, fabled or picturesque interest, are hereby classified as historic monuments. (1985 Ordinance No. 85-04, Art. 1)

Registry

The list of registered Historic Monuments, which shall be updated and published in the Official Journal of Burkina Faso by the sites and monuments services, shall be notified to the property’s owners as well as to the tenants or occupants within six months under penalty of debarment.  This notification brings about the obligation of the owners, or others, to refrain from any modification of the place or objects and to refrain from any work other than what constitutes its normal maintenance and general use, without the express authorization of the services of sites and monuments at least two months prior to the date on which the planned work is to begin. Registration permits the sites and monuments service to oppose the export of registered moveable objects in the event of the conditions prescribed in Articles 8 and 17 [of this law]. (1985 Ordinance No. 85-04, Art. 2)