This reminds me of what I heard about Shinto shrines in Japan (this is just hearsay, I never researched this). The idea is that the shrines have always been the same for over thousand years. The buildings are made of wood, so of course wood rots and needs replacing. There are all kinds of artisans who are trained in particular to create the ornaments and architecture that needs replacing at the temples – temple carpenters etc. But they always replace things in the exact same shape as it was before. Thus, they say, these temples have existed in this very form for over thousand years.

The European understanding of preservation is different: we want the exact same thing. Not a thing that was replicated in the exact same likeness.