The Department of Classics and Archaeology recently organised an international conference on Aviation Archaeology and Heritage at the Valletta Campus.

Co-hosted with (and supported by) the Flying Heritage and Combat Armour Museum of Seattle, USA, the logistics of the event were efficiently taken care of by the Conferences Unit of the University of Malta. In what was truly an international event, participants hailed from the USA, Australia, Finland, Sweden, Germany, the UK, Croatia and Italy to name some of the main contributing countries.

Opening with keynote speeches by the US Ambassador to Malta, her Excellency G. Kathleen Hill, Dr A. Hunt and Dr M. McCarthy, the conference continued over two days with a series of high level papers covering topics such as aviation archaeology underwater, ethics and legal issues of aircraft recovery, museum collections and other subjects.

On the final day of the conference, delegates visited the Malta Aviation Museum and finished off the successful event with a sumptuous meal in Valletta.

Discussions have already begun to ensure that this event evolves into a conference series with the second conference being planned for Seattle in 2019. Dr Timmy Gambin and Dr Adrian Hunt were conference conveners and will be editors of the conference proceedings that  will be published in the coming months.