Editorial | Monuments need care

While we hail the announcement that a new Port Royal Museum will open in May, it is hardly enough to assuage the hurt felt by many Jamaicans who have witnessed the neglect, decay and near demise of a historic landmark like the once revered Vale Royal.

Social media was awash recently with comments, after the photo of a lopsided Vale Royal building was shown with the coat of arms dandling at a perilous angle. Emotions ran high as persons commented on the shambolic condition of the grand 300 year-old building, which is still referred to as the official residence of the prime minister. It has ceased functioning as the prime minister’s home for many years, and is now basically abandoned.

A renovation plan has reportedly been prepared and submitted by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust (JNHT). Among the proposals is for the house to be repurposed to include a library and museum displaying documents and memorabilia of former prime ministers.

In the meantime, there are good reasons to applaud the $788-million investment in the Port Royal Museum, which will tell the story of a significant stage in Jamaica’s history when Port Royal stood at the epicentre of the British mercantile trade. With major financial input from the Port Authority of Jamaica, which operates the Port Royal cruise ship pier, Port Royal looks set to experience a renaissance of sorts after years of neglect.

Museums are best at collecting, preserving and displaying objects of historical and cultural value. In this case, the museum will trace some 500 years of Jamaica’s history under the Spanish and the English, when marauding pirates and swashbuckling merchants ruled the high seas and commercial life. Port Royal’s heyday came to a spectacular end by an earthquake which swallowed up the city in 1692.

AUTHENTIC SUNKEN CITY

Port Royal has been described by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as the only authentic sunken city in the Western Hemisphere, and has been offering nautical archaeologists opportunities for research since the mid-1900s. After several excavation expeditions, thousands of artefacts have reportedly been recovered.

Museums can generate income, and Port Royal stands to earn money from this facility. There are persons who thrive on a museum experience. They range from visitors who are interested in history and embracing other cultures, students and educational groups, to researchers and historians. These groups have enabled museums to flourish. For instance, the British Museum in London is one of the oldest public museums in the world, dating back 1753. More than six million people visit the British Museum each year. Interestingly, among the objects that the British Museum holds in storage are indigenous artefacts which were once sacred to the Taino people, who were the early inhabitants of Jamaica.

These totemic statutes, known as zemi , should now find their way back to Jamaica to form part of the display available for viewing in this new Port Royal Museum.

Jonathan Greenland, director of the National Museum Jamaica, agrees. He told The Telegraph newspaper, “I am British and I am absolutely for it … . We have a new museum planned and I think it would be a perfect fit. It would be a major coup if they were returned to Jamaica.”

If the museum is to do a good job as a custodian of our culture, it should have a comprehensive plan of how to preserve the collection for the future. That is the way to prevent the soon-to-be opened Port Royal Museum from eventually falling into the rot that has overtaken Vale Royal, the Rockfort Mineral Bath, National Heroes Circle, and other national landmarks.