Port Royal to be on UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites

Jamaica Information Service - 

The Jamaica National Heritage Trust (JNHT) has commenced work towards securing Port Royal's inclusion on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation's (UNESCO) list of World Heritage sites.

The process involves a series of activities, focusing mainly on the portions of the Sunken City, and adjoining areas over which the town’s existing layout was built, culminating with the preparation and submission of the nomination dossier to UNESCO in July 2014.

Port Royal is currently on UNESCO's World Heritage tentative list, having been so placed in February 2009.

One of the activities, an assessment of the sites, was conducted over the last week by a team, headed by Professor of the Nautical Archaeology programme, Anthropology Department, Texas A&M University, in the United States, Dr. Donny Hamilton.

Speaking at the presentation of the findings, at the Morgan's Harbour Hotel, Port Royal, on May 29, the JNHT's Technical Director in charge of Archaeology, Dorrick Gray, said the week-long exercise entailed visiting and viewing the sunken structures beneath the sea, within the harbour, and under the town’s existing buildings and general layout, totalling upwards of 51 acres, the state of which is well preserved.

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