Azerbaijan, Baku, Sept.13 / Trend /
BP on behalf of its co-venturers in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) projects today hosted public presentation of the book "Past and Future Heritage in the Pipelines Corridor - Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey", BP - Azerbaijan press release says.
The discoveries, which were made by the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of Azerbaijan, the Georgian National Museum and Turkey's Gazi University, contain some priceless artifacts that have been handed over to the three governments for storing, studying and preserving for future generations.
The research and publication are part of BTC and SCP's cultural heritage programme along the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey pipeline corridor. The programme, which started in 2008, had two main goals - public outreach and capacity building and targeted at three major beneficiaries: Gobustan State Historical-Artistic Reserve in Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijan Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, and the Georgian National Museum.
"BP is very proud to have made this valuable contribution to the research of the historic cultures of one of the world's most ancient civilisations historically residing along our pipelines route from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. This research is part of BP and its co-venturers' major cultural heritage sponsorship programme. I am really pleased that our programme gave an opportunity to teams of Azerbaijani, Georgian, Turkish, British and American archaeologists to travel along the pipelines route during our construction activities discovering hundreds of previously unknown and unexcavated sites. We have been advised that part of the programme, namely the part which we conducted in Azerbaijan and Georgia, was the first major archaeological excavation programme since the fall of the Soviet Union," Rashid Javanshir, BP's Regional President for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey said in his speech at the presentation event.
"The results are really exciting and we believe the publication that we are presenting today will serve as a valuable scientific reference book enabling readers from all over the world to reach the region's rich cultural heritage," he added.