The elevated status Malta has always held because of its strategic location in the Mediterranean is most characterized in both the panels and drawings displayed in a colourful exhibition entitled Unfurl Sails: The Mediterranean and its Ship currently on show at the Malta Maritime Museum in Vittoriosa.

The importance of an exhibition such as Unfurl Sails is in providing an indication of the importance the Mediterranean through history as a zone of contact and transmission.  It exposes how the Middle Sea together with its ships and peoples has played an enormously important role in human history, an interface of fascination and variation, as well as in influencing the rest of the world through various developments over time within this relatively small region of the planet.

The Exhibition was inaugurated last Thursday by Mr. Chris Agius, Parliamentary Secretary for Research, Innovation, Youth and Sport, in the presence of Ms. Ayse Sezgen Turkish Ambassador to Malta, and Prof. Dr. Murat Arslan, Director of the Mediterranean Civilisations Research Institute (MCRI) at Akdeniz University.

On display are 21 panels depicting the history of the Mediterranean, 6 panels with various ships types, 8 scale models of ships including a model of a Bronze Age ship, 2 animations of the Mediterranean in Antiquity and in the Middle Ages, and 40 pen drawings of Mediterranean vessels and galley-sheds.

The Mediterranean Civilisations Research Institute at Akdeniz University (Turkey), organizers of the Unfurl Sails exhibition, plans to take these works on tour to other Mediterranean countries. Prof. Dr. Israfil Kurtcephe Rector of Akdeniz University Antalya supported the exhibition and Turkish Airlines sponsored this initiative by flying 700 kilos of exhibition material, panels, drawings and ship models from Antalya to Malta.

Unfurl Sails: The Mediterranean and its Ship - will remain on display up till the 1st of May.