The alleged port was classified as "cultural heritage" by the previous minister Salim Wardeh and his scientific committee including Laure Salloum, Anis Chaya, Nadine Panayot and Assaad Seif based on Sayegh's report. Various other experts and archaeologists expressed views suggesting the importance of the find, including Jean Yves Empereur (Director of Research at CNRS and Director of the Alexandria Studies Centre), David Blackman (researcher at the University of Oxford), Marguerite Yon (Research Director Emeritus at the University of Lyon and former director of the French Archaeological Mission of Salamis, Kaliopi Baika, Kition and Ras Shamra-Ugarit), Ana-Maria Busila (PhD University of Iasi, Romania) and Jean-Christophe Sourisseau (responsible for the excavation of Kition in Cyprus). The claim that the site was a port was disputed by a new scientific committee of archaeologists appointed by Layoun including Hassan Salame Sarkis, Albert Naccache and Samir Chami based on reports of Hanz Curver (who initially supported Sageyh's findings, then reversed his opinion) and Ralph Pedersen a research associate of the institute of Nautical Archaeology and now teaching at Marburg in Germany.