Robert Parthesius

Robert Parthesius is director of the Centre for International Heritage Activities and appointed as Associate Professor in the Historical-Archaeology of the European Expansion at the University of Leiden. He is a maritime historian and archaeologist. He currently works on the interface between history and archaeology of the maritime history and European expansion. He holds a doctorate of the history of the European expansion from the University of Amsterdam.

Till 1995 he was coordinating the research for the reconstruction project on the VOC-ship Batavia in Lelystad. This work was the basis for a fruitful cooperation with the Western Australian Maritime Museum. In 1997 he organized the exhibition: 'From Hartog to the Vlamingh' covering the Dutch explorations of Australia. He was involved in various maritime archaeological projects. Most important was the Galle Harbour Project in Sri Lanka 1992-1999. Since 1999 he has coordinated the cooperation between The Netherlands and Sri Lanka in the field of Mutual Heritage. This cooperation resulted in the establishment of a Mutual Heritage Centre in Sri Lanka 2000. From this centre various Sri Lankan-Dutch projects cultural heritage projects have been carried out. From 1998 till 2005 he was appointed as curator of the Amsterdam Historical Museum.