Palermo: Superintendence of the Sea of ​​Sicily, a day of studies on the first 20 years since its foundation

Born in 2004, thanks to the intuition and will of Sebastian Tusa, in synergy with the then regional councillor Fabio Granata and the general manager Joseph Grado, the Superintendency of the Sea of ​​the Sicilian Region turns twenty. For the occasion today, Wednesday 16 October, starting at 9am, in the Myrtle Palace, in via Lungarini 9 in Palermo, a meeting will be held a day of celebration and studies to retrace its history.

A simple article of law provided for its creation, following in this the example of the “Ephorate of underwater antiquities” already existing for some time within the Ministry of Culture of Greece. In Europe, and perhaps in the world, it was therefore, in chronological order, the second government institution specifically entrusted with the research, protection and valorization of underwater cultural heritage.

«Today – says the regional councillor for cultural heritage and Sicilian identity, Francesco Paolo Scarpinato – the Superintendency of the Sea wants to celebrate and retrace its history by first of all addressing a moving thought to Sebastiano Tusa who left us prematurely in 2019. His memory is present in all of us who carry forward his teachings projected into the future of underwater archaeology».

Many guests were busy retracing twenty years of research, excavations and important discoveries; among these was the commander of the Maritime Directorate of Western Sicily, Raphael Macauda; the commander of the naval air department of the Guardia di Finanza in Sicily, Alessandro Bucci, and the commander of the Carabinieri Cultural Heritage Protection Unit, Lieutenant Colonel Gianluigi Marmora.

«The police forces – says the Superintendent of the Sea, Ferdinand Maurici – have been a fundamental support in these twenty years with the generous contribution of men and resources, also ensuring the indispensable safety in the water for the divers of the Superintendency".

The day will be divided into two different moments: in the morning section the members of the Superintendency will retrace some of the salient stages of these twenty years. On the agenda The underwater excavations in the seas of Sicily, protection activities, the creation of underwater cultural itineraries, missions abroad, from Libya to Japan, collaborations with Italian and foreign universities and research institutes, publications and editorial and multimedia production of the Superintendency, cataloguing activities of cultural heritage linked to the sea.

In the afternoon the theme will be “A look above and below the Mediterranean and the Atlantic“. After an incursion into the field of literature by Gianni Eugenio Viola, it will be the turn of the heads of Italian public institutions and EU countries that have the same institutional purposes as the Superintendency of the Sea who will tell stories of navigations, shipwrecks and recoveries in the Maltese archipelago and the Strait of GibraltarThe session will continue with speeches by the heads of two private cultural institutions with which the Superintendency of the Sea has collaborated for many years: Mario Arena, one of the most successful Italian deep-sea divers, who with the divers of the Sdss company contributed to the recovery of a large part of the rostrums of the Battle of the Egadi in synergy with the American RPM Nautical Foundation, which has been alongside the regional structure for twenty years, making extraordinary men and resources available, starting with the oceanographic vessel Hercules; to the founder of the RPM, George Robb Jr., and to the president, James Goold, the conclusions of the day will instead be entrusted.