The first table, by the expert on maritime heritage, Manuel Gómez Planas, under the title "What fate has the collection of the ancient Balearic Maritime Museum"

The Maritime Museum of Mallorca launched last Saturday the second cycle of talks on maritime heritage "Converses amb la mar." It is a project, in its second edition, that wants to bring the maritime heritage and culture of Mallorca closer together and does so with a series of talks, which can be enjoyed on a Saturday a month at the headquarters of the museum in Palma.

The marine heritage expert, Manuel Gómez Planas, made his presentation under the title "What a destination the collection of the former Balearic Sea Museum has had." The talk was about the wealth of our maritime heritage, from its colonization to today, but historically forgotten.

"Everything together makes it necessary and necessary to make an inventory, in order to know what has really come to this day, with special interest in the fate of the pieces of the former Maritime Museum of Balearic Islands, doing detective, but exciting work," explained the expert with maritime heritage, Manuel Gómez Planas.

Thus, Manuel Gómez Planas took a look at the history of the Balearic Sea Museum, which was founded in 1950 and selected 285 pieces to be exposed. In 1951 the memory of the Museum was written and it is a document "unique and indispensable to understand the history of our maritime heritage." The Balearic Maritime Museum was inaugurated on March 17, 1951 and was located on the ground floor of the Consolat de Mar building. Finally, according to the catalog published in 1963, a total of 148 pieces were exhibited.

The closure of the Balearic Maritime Museum was in 1974 "and the pieces that were in the condition of temporary concession were returned to their owners, while those that were property of the Museum and those that the owners did not want, were left under the property of the same Museum", said Manuel Gómez Planas. All of them were stored in the Consolat de Mar chapel, where they remained for six years.

The marine heritage expert explained that during this period, a group of volunteers, led by Xavier Pastor Quijada, carried out the cleaning, restoration and maintenance of the deposited parts. "As an anecdote, it was then that they realized that, as a result of the works they were doing, the bow masked had been matched, with the image of Ramón Llull, given to the Museum by the Luliana Archaeological Society, from the steam Lulio of the company Iscala Marítima, which had been hidden and from which only the arm was outstanding," said Manuel Gómez Planas.

From this moment on, a new search for pieces is initiated by Manuel Gómez, who is found with a data dance in terms of pieces, which makes the process of cataloguing difficult. The research carried out, according to the 1980 inventories, and the one of delivery in the Museum of Mallorca in 1987, results with 53 pieces of the Museum of Mallorca; 2 pieces of the Museum of the Sea of Sóller; 4 pieces of the Military Museum of San Carlos; 9 pieces in the Consolat de Mar and 1 in the Museum of History of Havana, the famous' Silla de Maceo ', making a total of 69 pieces located.

The second talk of the cycle will be next Saturday, February 13, also at the Cultural Centre Ses Voltes, under the title "El nou Museu Marítima de Mallorca" and will be in charge of Tatum and Golomb and the managing director of the Museo Marítimo de Mallorca, Albert Forés Gómez, also at 11 a.m.