Integrating Cultural Heritage in the Conservation and Development of Planning in Socotra Island
The second workshop on ‘Integrating Cultural Heritage in the Conservation and Development of Planning in Socotra Island’ is currently being held at ARC-WH, based in Manama, Bahrain, from 21- 25 October 2018. Participants include eight Socotris, and four international experts in the field of cultural heritage documentation, archaeology, sustainable tourism and botany.
This workshop forms part of a two-year programme following the first training that took place in February 2018, and aims at enhancing the skills of the Socotri participants in the conservation and documentation of cultural heritage of the Socotra Archipelago, which was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008 for its natural Outstanding Universal Value.
During the five-day workshop, participants will continue to be trained on more advanced levels of cultural heritage documentation, in both theory and practice, such as archaeological surveying and rock art, as well as the promotion of sustainable cultural tourism, and the production of short documentary films.
ARC-WH also has collaborated with a team of experts to publish a study on ‘Documenting a threatened rock art site on Soqotra, Yemen’, in which drawings, symbols and signs were discovered by during the team’s archaeological field work in Socotra, and date back to 1st BC and 8th century AD. As a result of this discovery, the current workshop also includes a greater focus on the documentation of rock art and how to effectively protect the physical evidence of the archipelago’s cultural richness and history.
The workshop is organised in cooperation with the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh and Freie Universität Berlin, with financial support of the British Council. This training course will be followed by the 17th International Congress of Socotra and the Annual General Meeting of Friends of Socotra, hosted by the Bahrain National Museum from 25 to 28 October 2018.
