Page 20 - Manual for Activities directed at the Underwater Cultural Heritage

I. General Principles
© Jukka Nurminen, Abyss
Ar t Oy. Dutch shipwreck Vrouwe Maria, Nagu, Finland.
In 1999, the wreck of the Vrouwe Maria, a Dutch merchant vessel that sank on its way to Russia in 1771, was discovered at 41 m of depth in between the islands off the coast of Finland.The story
of its wrecking and it carrying a shipment of artworks destined for the Russian Tsarina Catherine the Great was well-known.The Finnish competent authority
was therefore soon faced with pressure to immediately start
an operation looking into the cargo. Any such operation
would certainly have led to
the disturbance of the site’s integrity, even before the quality of the hull’s conservation had been fully assessed. Despite the pressure, the National Board of Antiquities decided to proceed more cautiously.The site was protected and gradually more and more images, information and environmental data of the wreck were collected.This cautious approach, with in situ protection as the first and immediate choice, meant that all other options are still open at the current stage and that well-considered research, visualization and on-site outreach are now still possible.
The 36 Rules of the ANNEX are a set of coherent rules concerning activities directed at underwater cultural heritage. Although they address different aspects, they need to be understood as a whole, since not all of them are self-explanatory if taken out of context. Moreover, they need to be considered in the wider context of heritage protection and management, although – even as a set – they only address a specific part of that field, namely the specific activities that are directed at underwater cultural heritage. These Rules align the different purposes, approaches, aims and objectives of such activities in the specific context in which it is deemed acceptable to interfere with heritage, under water as well as on land.
Although management policies have traditionally focused on heritage on land, heritage management is governed by general principles that apply to all heritage, irrespective of its location. Many States have long defined policies and regulations for the protection and management of built and archaeological heritage. Worldwide, these long- standing approaches have led to a widespread consensus on the values of heritage and the prevention of its abuse. The Rules conform to that consensus and these widely acknowledged principles govern the Rules of the ANNEX.
The manual’s structure allows dealing with each Rule individually while referring to its wider context. The underlying principles are set out in the first set of Rules of the Annex, Rules 1 to 8, but obviously these fundamental principles governing heritage management, cooperation between parties, research, planning, and development recur throughout this book. The wider context of heritage protection and management, as well as trends in the development of society will be referred to consistently. It is in this wider context that each Rule makes sense.
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General Principles