About our staff

Dr Arturo Rey da Silva is a maritime archaeologist with a large experience in the field of international cooperation, capacity-building, and heritage diplomacy. Between 2011 and 2018 he was part of the UNESCO Secretariat for the 2001 Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, where he worked giving technical assistance to the Member States to advance research and capacities in maritime archaeology research and heritage protection, as well as providing guidance for heritage policy development. Since 2018, Arturo has worked with UNESCO Headquarters as well as with several UNESCO Field Offices, notably in Africa, Central Asia and Latin America, establishing regional capacity-strengthening strategies, outreach initiatives, policy-oriented programmes, and results-based frameworks. Previously, He worked at the Spanish National Museum for Underwater Archaeology ARQVA (2009-2010).

He got his Ph.D. in January 2021 from the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, after undertaken a research fellowship at the Spanish School of History and Archaeology in Rome, with a thesis that looked into the institutionalization of underwater archaeology within international cooperation schemes, and its contribution to sustainable development. Arturo is also visiting lecturer in several universities (i.e. The University of Alexandria in Egypt, the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, The University of Cadiz in Spain, or University Externado in Colombia) and was elected Member of the ICOMOS International Committee for Underwater Cultural Heritage (ICUCH) in 2019. He has recently joined the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh as Honor Frost Scholar in Marine Cultural Heritage where he analyzes the outputs and outcomes of the Rising from the Depths Network (RftD) projects, measuring the contribution of marine cultural heritage to sustainable development in Eastern Africa as well as their potential for maximizing the impact of the Honor Frost Foundation actions in the Eastern Mediterranean.

• Member of the ICOMOS International Committee of the Underwater Cultural Heritage (ICUCH)
• Member of the Scientific Committee, PERICLES Project
• Editorial Board Member, Journal of Maritime Archaeology

Twitter @AREYSIL 

Summary of research interests

• Africa
• Latin America
• Mediterranean
• Near East

• Ancient Civilisations
• Culture
• Landscapes & Monuments
• Material Culture
• Politics
• Society

• Prehistory
• Early Historic
• Antiquity
• Medieval
• Twentieth Century & After

My research interests range from the understanding of local communities’ traditional technical, conceptual and spiritual uses of maritime spaces to the study of heritage conceptualization within maritime groups, its institutionalization through heritage diplomacy processes, and the role played by maritime archaeology in the development of intercultural dialogue, cooperation, and sustainable development policies.

I am particularly interested in the relation between the past human interactions with the marine environment and present societies as well as in the way this can contribute to designing strategies to face current global challenges.

Further general areas of interest are:

• Maritime Archaeology
• Marine Cultural Heritage Preservation
• Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development
• Heritage Diplomacy and Cultural Internationalism
• Maritime Ethnography