Conserving 3,000-year-old heritage of Muziris

Bengaluru: Bengalureans got a glimpse of Kerala Government’s Muziris heritage project that intends to conserve and showcase a culture of 3000 years and its ties with many foreign countries. Benny Kuriakose, the Conservation Consultant for the project gave an overview of this heritage conservation initiative at Max Muller Bhavan on Saturday evening.

The Kerala Government seeks to rejuvenate, conserve and showcase cultural heritage of Muziris (Pattanam), the legendary ancient port that had strong links with the Roman Empire. Benny said, “We involved the local community and carried out a lot of negotiations about preserving the heritage here. Unlike other tourism projects, we did not face any opposition; they understood that it is going to benefit the local community.”

Research has proved that Kerala had relations with more than 30 countries. Chinese, Arabs, Jews, Greeks and Romans had come to trade. “We have a digitized map of the entire project which we will eventually be available to the visitors as well. There are more than 400 monuments, of which 60 will be initially opened,” Kuriakose said. Community museums are an integral part of the project. These museums will tell the stories of the locality and most of the artifacts have been contributed by locals.

Again there are 350 markets of which three have been identified and developed. They have been provided the necessary infrastructure to retain its traditional look. “We have built a boat as well at a cost of Rs 50 lakh. We needed another Rs 30 lakh which got approved recently. This boat will take visitors to Fort Kochi. We want to build an intangible heritage here. After all this is a living settlement for over 2,000 years,” Kuriakose said.

However, he said the path was not as easy as it sounds. “There were a few bureaucrats who took things very lightly. In one instance, I objected at the script of the museum as most of it was taken from wiki. Here we have to be correct with the history and it has to be authentic. I immediately wrote to Chief Secretary and he supported it. I did not have any issues with politicians though,” Kuriakose said.

Some of the monuments under this project are Pallipuram Fort, Vyppikota Seminary, Holy Cross Church, Kottayil Kovilakam and Kottappuram Fort.