Underwater Cultural Heritage

Passage A is from a newspaper article. Passage B is from UNESCO’s 1999 Draft Convention on Underwater Cultural Heritage.

Passage A A North American company that found what is believed to be the HMS Sussex during expeditions in the Mediterranean from 1998 to 2001 has signed an agreement with the British government, which owns the Sussex, to raise what may be history’s richest sunken treasure and to split the proceeds. The in gold coins lost with the Sussex in a storm in 1694.

As robots, sonar, and other technologically advanced gear have opened the deepest oceans to exploration and recovery, governments have begun asserting ownership over their sunken vessels. But governments often lack the money and skills to retrieve cultural riches and, until now, there had been no legal precedent for a private company to treasure hunting and allow nations to oversee the recovery of their lost fleets.

The company, which is funding the venture, agrees with British historians that the ship carried coins, most likely gold, worth £1 million in 1694. The US$4 billion figure is the coins’ theoretical value if sold to collectors. The agreement calls for archaeological integrity—a difficult technical feat at such depths and a goal archaeological value than coins, which it allows to be sold to help pay for the project.

Passage B “Underwater cultural heritage” (UCH) means all traces of human existence that have been partially, totally, or periodically least 100 years.

1. The protection of UCH is best achieved through in situ (original site) preservation, which should be considered as the first option. Accordingly, activities directed at UCH shall be authorized by the competent authority of the concerned State to knowledge, protection, and/or enhancement of UCH.

2. The commercial exploitation of UCH for trade, sale, barter, or speculation...is fundamentally incompatible with the protection of the UCH.

3. Activities directed at UCH shall not adversely impact UCH more than is necessary for the project;

4. must use nondestructive techniques and prospection and limited sampling in preference to recovery of objects. If excavation is necessary for the purpose of scientific studies, the methods and techniques used must be to the preservation of the remains;

5. shall avoid the unnecessary disturbance of human remains sites;

6. shall be strictly regulated to ensure proper recording of historical, archaeological information.

7. Public access to conduct activities relating to UCH that are nonintrusive (such as photography) be encouraged.