16.09.2024 The Underwater Cultural heritage

Exhibition on underwater cultural heritage, organized by the UNESCO Regional Office in Almaty and the Central State Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan UNESCO, together with the Central State Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan, provides residents of Almaty and guests of the city with a unique opportunity to discover the importance of preserving underwater cultural heritage.
Oceans, seas, lakes and rivers hide under the water an invaluable heritage that remains largely unknown and undervalued. However, the Underwater Cultural heritage (UCH) faces numerous threats such as treasure hunting, looting and commercial exploitation. Environmental degradation and climate change also pose a threat to its conservation, along with technological advances that stimulate coastal development and the exploitation of marine resources.
No one can protect what is unknown. According to the famous Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau, "We love what we marvel at, and we protect what we love”. Today, these underwater vestiges are threatened by looting and commercial exploitation, industrial trawling, coastal development, exploitation of natural resources and the sea bed. These vestiges are also weakened by global warming, water acidification and pollution.

In 2018, eight countries from both sides of the Mediterranean joined forces to protect and study the common underwater cultural heritage located outside territorial waters on the continental shelf of Italy and Tunisia. This marked the beginning of the largest and most ambitious international mission for the protection of underwater cultural heritage ever conducted under the auspices of UNESCO, which started in 2022.
Researchers from Algeria, Croatia, Egypt, France, Italy, Morocco, Spain and Tunisia collaborated for this international underwater archaeological mission. It took place over 14 days, aboard the French scientific vessel, the Alfred Merlin, on two autonomous projects:

∙   “The Skerki Bank, Tunisian continental shelf”;

∙   “In the footsteps of Ballard-McCann (American expeditions from 1980 – 2000), Italian continental shelf".

Visitors of the exhibition, which will be held from September 16 to 23, 2024 at the Central State Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan, will be able to learn about this and much more.