The Heritage of Heritage Salvage

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Over on Meg Lambert's blog is posted a comment which merits drawing attention to. It highlights the problems of treating unique archaeological complexes as artefact mines. The text is a report of Mr Agus Sudaryadi (Coordinator for Underwater Archaeology, Office for Cultural Heritage Preservation of Jambi, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Indonesia) referring to The Belitung shipwreck site after commercial salvage in 1998

The Belitung Shipwreck Site, located at 17 m depth in Belitung waters, Indonesia, is a shipwreck site containing Tang Cargo Treasure that was lifted by private salvage companies, PT. Sulung Segara Jaya and Seabed Exploration Company in 1998. The salvaging process [wa]s done without involving Indonesian archaeologist. The ship is an Arab dhow with 15.5 m long that includes 60,000 pieces artifacts from Tang Dynasty period. At present these artifacts are under the management of Singapore Sentosa Leisure Group. In 2010, the Office for Cultural Heritage Preservation of Jambi conducted the first underwater archaeological survey at the Belitung Shipwreck site in order to find out the recent conditions of the site after salvaging in 1998. The result shows that the site is extremely ravaged, where unidentified ceramic fragments spread out in a radius of ± 20 m². It seems clear that the ceramics fragments have been removed by the company then thrown back into the sea because they were considered non-commercial. Meanwhile, the shipwreck was not found anymore. It was only a big form hole with 6 m wide and 15 m long, which seems to be the ship place. The remaining wrecks are now just a few small wood fragments and a sizable chunk of wood sitting, seems as a mast foundation.

Odyssey Marine Exploration Seizes on National Icon: How will Britain React?

"Tampa, FL – February 2, 2009 - Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. (NasdaqCM: OMEX), pioneers in the field of deep-ocean shipwreck exploration, has discovered the long-sought shipwreck of HMS Victory lost in 1744, solving one of the greatest mysteries in naval history. ..."
and presumably looks to make a pretty packet from raising artefacts from her and selling them since that is what they are in the business for. The trouble is that these are the remains of a warship of the British navy and went down with all hands, so its a grave.

No problem. The British like letting treasure hunters do their thing on archaeological sites on land and under water, so it is no surprise to learn that "terms of collaboration between Odyssey and the UK MOD on the project are currently being negotiated, and an agreement similar to the Sussex Partnering agreement has been proposed". That's all we need.

There is an interesting report about the site that was initially code-named "Legend" here and (unlike the Black Swan affair at the time of discovery), we learn the names of the archaeologists involved: Neil Cunningham Dobson, Dr. Sean Kingsley, the former is acceredited as employed by Odyssey. They give all the reasons why they think the site should be explored and not preserved.

The preliminary "pre-disturbance" work on the wreck will figure on a Discovery Channel “Treasure Quest” episode, airing in the United States on Thursday, February 5 at 10PM ET/PT and in the UK on Sunday, February 8 at 9:00 PM.

Illustration, The Victory (from Treasure Quest).

Britain should ratify Underwater Cultural heritage Convention

There are only 17 nations who so far have ratified the UNESCO convention on the protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage (2001) and its Annex.

In order for it to enter into force, twenty states parties need to ratify it.

The British take pride in the fact that for a large part of recent history Britain was one of the prime sea powers, both naval as well as in terms of commerce. There is a fair bit of British cultural heritage scattered across the bottom of the world's seas.

Despite this, Britain is one of those nations that is still resisting ratifying this document. If we are intend to protect our global cultural heritage it is essential that all nations respect the spirit of the Convention, enforce abidance by the rules of the Annex to the Convention and establish administrative and funding mechanisms to allow the effective implementation of the Convention as soon as possible.

Of course that would get in the way of escapades like the British government’s hypocritical “HMS Sussex" deal with Florida based commercial treasure hunters Odyssey (yes, the same ones mixed up in the so-called “Black Swan” affair).