Croatia and Spain unite to preserve underwater cultural heritage 

ZAGREB, 24 July (Hina) – Over the next six years, Croatia and Spain will cooperate in underwater research and the protection of underwater cultural heritage, the two Mediterranean countries announced after their representatives signed a cooperation agreement in Madrid.

The International Center for Underwater Archaeology in Zadar, a public institution from Croatia, and the Spanish Ministry of Culture signed a memorandum of cooperation on Wednesday in the building of the Spanish Ministry.

“Cooperation between different countries is essential in order to access underwater deposits with an adequate methodology,” the Spanish ministry said. “With this memorandum, Spain and Croatia express their commitment to the identification, protection, management, preservation and promotion of cultural underwater sites, considering this heritage to be good for all of humanity,” it added.

Spain had proposed to Croatia that they sign an international act on promoting cooperation in the field of underwater cultural heritage, after which the Croatian Ministry of Culture left the signing of the agreement to the Center for Archaeology from Zadar.

Underwater archaeologists from Croatian institutions and Spain participated last year in a wider international team that discovered shipwrecks on the bottom between Italy and Tunisia, which are currently being analysed. The results of the research were presented last month in Paris at the headquarters of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

Cooperation should now be deepened in other projects as well.

Croatia and Spain are signatories to the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage adopted in 2001.