PESHAWAR, June 4: The Hazara University’s archaeology department and the Leicester University, UK, on Monday launched the ‘Strategic Partnership Extension in Knowledge Exchange (SPEKE)’ project with the financial support of the British Council to promote archeological heritage of Pakistan.

Project link coordinator Dr Abdul Samad told reporters here that the SPEKE had scientifically designed the project to promote the archaeological heritage of Pakistan by supporting tourism.

He said preliminarily, the project had been executed in Chitral valley with the involvement of more than 150 professional archaeologists, tourism specialists, local community and the relevant government officials.

Dr Samad, who is also the chairman of the Hazara University’s archeology department, said the SPEKE would involve entrepreneurs and other relevant stakeholders to highlight the importance of the country’s rich and diverse archaeological heritage both at local and international levels.

“The SPEKE activities will be self-sustainable and will ultimately play role to develop a positive image of Pakistan at international level. Local community will also be involved in the project, which will also create lots of job opportunities,” he said.

Dr Samad said: “We are also working on the capacity building of Chitrali community at an earlier stage. We are also giving special training archeological experts, which could further disseminate their knowledge and skills at the local level.”

He said he was hopeful that the project would play integral role for promotion of archaeological tourism besides helping policymakers better understand that archaeology was biggest revenue generating asset of Pakistan.

On the occasion, Hazara University vice chancellor Dr Sakhawat Shah said his varsity’s archaeology department had adopted pragmatic ways for contemporary research in archaeological field.