The long journey to get Port Royal on UNESCO World Heritage List

JAMAICA HAS proudly etched another milestone in its cultural journey with the recent inscription of Port Royal on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage List.

Once dubbed the ‘wickedest city on earth’, the

17th-century archaeological landscape has been formally recognised for its global significance, a recognition that took more than a decade of research, negotiations and perseverance.

Manager of the Heritage Preservation and Planning Unit in the Archaeology Division at the Jamaica National Heritage Trust (JNHT), Jasinth Simpson, explained that the journey began in 2009 when the sunken city was placed on Jamaica’s tentative list of sites eligible for nomination.

“The first step in the process before any site can be nominated is to include the site on the country’s tentative list. For Jamaica, the sunken city of Port Royal was placed on our tentative list on March 2, 2009,” Simpson recalled.

“We have been working on the Port Royal nomination from 2009. We have a technical team within archaeology at the JNHT, and we received international assistance to identify the boundaries of the nominated property and the buffer zones,” she continued.

Simpson detailed the painstaking evaluation, noting that the site was first submitted in 2018, but deferred in 2019.

“It took us four years to work on a new nomination, a new submission to UNESCO. So, we submitted the archaeological landscape of 17th-century Port Royal in December 2023 … and on July 12, at the 47th session held in Paris, the committee made a decision to have Port Royal inscribed,” she added.

The process was not without obstacles.

“One of the biggest challenges we faced with the Port Royal nomination was how to present the site so that others would understand it. Here we have a site where a part is above ground … structures and remains that are underground … and then you have another part underwater. We had to figure out how best to express that clearly,” Simpson said.

Another challenge was proving that modern shipping activity did not pose a threat. “We were able to show, through technical studies with the Port Authority, that these large vessels did not negatively impact the site,” she informed.

Meanwhile, chief technical director of archaeology at the JNHT, Selvenious Walters, cited the weight of the deferral. “The team was really depressed, especially the time when our first nomination was deferred. We were being asked to justify a whole lot of things … having to clarify things over and over again was frustrating,” he said.

Still, he emphasised that the effort has set a global precedent. “Port Royal is actually the first site of its kind to be placed on the World Heritage List. It also bridges the UNESCO World Heritage Convention and the Underwater Cultural Heritage Convention. Port Royal was pretty much a guinea pig for other nations,” he told said.

Both experts underscored that Port Royal is unique worldwide. “This 17th-century site informs us today, in the 21st century, how life was being lived in the 17th century. There’s no other site in the world like Port Royal,” Simpson said.

In the meantime, Walters said that in terms of archaeology, Port Royal’s conservation of its 17th-century assets, especially underwater, is just perfect.

“Nowhere else will you find such remains of a British settlement in this state of preservation,” he added.

Port Royal’s bad reputation as a hub of piracy and slavery is also part of its story. “It is important that we tell the history, whether positive or negative. Our duty as archaeologists is to uncover and highlight the full story of the site,” said Walters.

Simpson pointed to evidence of enslaved Africans’ contribution. “It was the enslaved Africans that constructed these forts and structures from the 17th century. Their efforts, work, and skill are part of the site’s legacy,” she said.

The UNESCO designation is expected to boost tourism and community development.

“With this new inscription, Port Royal will experience an increase in tourist arrivals. Both the JNHT and National Environment and Planning Agency have management plans in place for the protection of the natural and cultural heritage of the area,” Simpson noted.

“We are looking to see how it is that we can include members from the community to actually do some of these tours,” she said.

For his part, Walters pointed to growing local capacity, adding that, “currently, the JNHT employs a number of persons from Port Royal, and the plan is to increase the number over the years”.

“Recently, we have a project restoring the wall around the Old Naval Hospital. Four individuals from Port Royal were trained in brick restoration during a project at the hospital,” she said.

Future plans include installation of a UNESCO World Heritage plaque, development of virtual museums for visitors unable to dive, and expanded training in underwater archaeology.

“We hope to train people from Jamaica, the region, and the world,” Walters said.

Reflecting on the long journey, Simpson credited both perseverance and faith, adding that, “every meeting we had began with prayer. We prayed and asked God for knowledge, strength, insight, and we did receive it. To God be the glory”.

JIS