I stand corrected, all of my records were stolen by my ex partner around 2001 and my old computers are in storage in New Jersey with any data that might be left. But as with all things I occasionally have a look at old work. I saw this last year and kept it, maybe you did not see it.
Veloso Defends Underwater Archaeology Contract
Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
June 18, 2004
Posted to the web June 18, 2004
Maputo
The export and auctioning of archaeological spoils from a sunken Portuguese galleon in Mozambican waters was "the last resort", according to former cooperation minister Jacinto Veloso, who is now chairman of the board of the company Patrimonio Internacional.
This company (which is 80 per cent owned by the Mozambican state) signed a controversial contract with the government and with the private company Arqueonautas Worldwide, which allowed Arqueonautas to take 125 porcelain items and 12 gold objects from the 16th century galleon, and auction them in Holland last month.
Interviewed in Friday's issue of the independent newsheet "Mediafax", Veloso said it was only the impossibility of preserving all the underwater archaeological finds in Mozambique which had led to the contracting of a private company to remove the treasures that had lain at the bottom of the sea for centuries.
"I am absolutely against exporting all that has been found, but I am in favour of selling off goods when there is no other way of financing the research. That's what happened in this case", said Veloso.
"In terms of shipwrecks, Mozambique has one of the richest coasts in the world", he continued. "We have a treasure to exploit, and if didn't sell some of it, then everything that still exists would disappear".
It would disappear, because unscrupulous treasure hunters would raid the wrecks. This has already happened three times to this particular Portuguese galleon, which lies in shallow waters off the coast of Mozambique Island in the north of the country.
The Mozambican authorities have no idea exactly what was stolen in these raids.
The contract with Arqueonautas allows the Mozambican government to select the best pieces, which stay in the country for display in Mozambican museums. Arqueonautas can take 50 per cent of the finds - but this excludes the rarest and most valuable items.
So far the divers employed by Arqueonautas have recovered 2,000 Chinese porcelain items from the Ming dynasty, and 12 kilos of gold items.
It would be ideal if Mozambique had the technical and financial resources of its own to explore the wrecks, and conserve the items found there, said Veloso. But it doesn't.
Nor has it been able to secure funding from international cultural bodies. Veloso said attempts were made to persuade the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to fund the exploration of the Portuguese galleon. But UNESCO said it did not have the money for this.
Only after this rejection did the government sign the contract with Arqueonautas.
The UN convention on protecting underwater cultural heritage (which Mozambique has not yet ratified) says the first option should always be to preserve sunken archaeological sites as they are, rather than removing items from them.
But an American archaeologist working on Mozambique Island, Mensun Bound, thinks this is impractical in the case of the Portuguese galleon. "When ships are very accessible, as this one is, since it sunk very close to the shore, the risk of looting is very high", he warned. Selling part of the spoils from the galleon might make it possible to fund new cultural projects - notably a new archaeological museum on Mozambique Island, which was the original colonial capital.
Veloso said this is still a long way off. Meanwhile the spoils from the galleon claimed by the state have gone into storage, awaiting better days, when the Mozambican public will be able to view what specialists regard as the largest collection of Chinese porcelain salvaged from the Indian Ocean.
Patrimonio Internacional is a non-profit making company originally set up to organise Mozambique's participation in Expo98, in Lisbon. Its current vocation is to invest in cultural projects, particularly in archaeology. Veloso said the company's executives are thinking about abandoning the company model, and transforming it into an association or a foundation.
The legality of exporting items taken from the galleon is in dispute. Jurist Carlos Serra, who teaches cultural heritage law at Mozambique's Legal Training Centre is convinced that the 1988 law on protecting cultural heritage flatly forbids the export of classified goods - and all archaeological finds are classified, unless the full Council of Ministers (Cabinet) declassifies them, which did not happen in the case of the items taken from the galleon.
Veloso, however, argues that the law is unclear, and that the Ministry of Culture, acting on behalf of the Council of Ministers, has declassified the items in question.
But Veloso also thought it a mistake "to resort to legalistic arguments, because we should be looking at what approach best defends our country and our interests".
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"We should be objective and constructive, and think about what we really want to do to develop this country" he added. "We want to create jobs, we want to train people, we want to attract tourists and investments".
And if the law on cultural heritage was an obstacle, or if there were doubts about how to interpret it, then it should be amended, he declared.
