This ship, equipped with the latest technologies and respectful of the environment, is intended to serve as human diving support and robotic as part of the campaigns of protection, inventory, study and valorization of French maritime cultural properties but also research projects in underwater archaeology (prospections, expertise, excavations). It will contribute to scientific research and contribute to State action at sea.
After having created the Department of Underwater and Underwater Archaeological Research (Drassm) in 1966, André Malraux, then Minister of Cultural Affairs, endowed the new body in 1967 with an archaeological research vessel: L'Archéonaute. A tool for several generations of underwater archaeologists, L'Archéonaute has travelled the Mediterranean for forty years until 2005.
A naval study was initiated in the fall of 2006 to develop plans for a new vessel. Built by the H2X shipyards of the Ciotat, the research ship, dubbed the André Malraux, will support for the next fifty years all the prospecting, expertise and excavation programs led by the Drassm, both on the coastal fringes and in the offshore, in the Mediterranean as well as in the Atlantic, English Channel or North Sea.
The Drassm is a service with national competence established in Marseille. Reporting to the Directorate-General for Heritage, he is an expert for all archaeological research requiring the use of diving in inland waters, on the public maritime domain and in the contiguous area under French jurisdiction. It is also responsible for the implementation of legislation on maritime cultural property and the texts adopted for their implementation.
The ship André Malraux was christened by Florence Malraux on 24 January 2012 at the Ciotat, in the presence of Frédéric Mitterrand, Minister of Culture and Communication.
Published on 24.01.2012
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