This is a cargo ship that has been sunk for more than 1200 years, which is filled with precious cultural relics from ancient China, about 67,000 pieces, most of which are porcelain from Changsha official kilns, but strangely, but looking through the historical materials of ancient Asian waters, there is no record of this ship.
Today we will tell the story of this shipwreck.
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In 1997, a local salvage company in Indonesia approached the German Tillmann Watfa and asked him to help salvage a shipwreck.
In the last few years of the last century, I don't know when, in the sea between Borneo and Sumatra, Indonesian fishermen in the process of fishing for sea cucumbers can always find some porcelain overgrown with sea oysters, which are old, well-made, simple and exquisite, and completely different from the local porcelain aesthetic style.
The fishermen's discovery attracted the attention of some treasure hunters, so after obtaining permission from the local government, the Indonesian company sent someone to find Waterfa, wanting to cooperate with him in search of ancient treasures on the seabed.
Speaking of this Water Law, he is a famous figure in the history of the search for underwater treasures. He was originally the owner of a cement factory in Germany, and he liked to pursue excitement and curiosity. In 1996, during a small talk, he overheard Indonesian workers in the factory mention that the sea between Borneo and Sumatra in Indonesia hides a large number of magical ancient treasures. The news aroused his great curiosity.
Driven by the trend of curiosity and the stimulation of wealth interests, he decided to try his luck in Indonesia. In 1997, after purchasing some professional diving equipment, he came to Indonesia accompanied by workers. I don't know if it was his good luck or some other reason, but he soon found a Shipwreck of the Chinese Song Dynasty and fished out a large number of Chinese Northern Song porcelain and Indonesian gold coins. In the first half of 1998, he salvaged a Shipwreck of the Chinese Ming Dynasty in this area and harvested a large number of Ming Dynasty porcelain.
Tillman Water Law
The two discoveries not only benefited Walter, but also made him famous in the treasure hunting community ever since. So when the suspected ancient shipwreck was once again discovered on the island of Belitung near the sea, Indonesians quickly thought of him and the "Undersea Exploration" company he had founded.
For the invitation of the Indonesians, Waterfa readily agreed, and the two successes had already made him have unspeakable feelings for this sea. Only this time, Walter Could Not have imagined that his decision not only rewrote his fate, but also allowed him to knock on the "gate of the new century" that shook the whole world.
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In September 1998, Walter sailed to the island of Belitung, where porcelain was found. At the direction of fishermen, Waterfa found an ancient shipwreck at a depth of 17 meters. Much of the hull is surrounded by dense corals and plankton, condensing into a thick layer of sediment. Although the hull was wrapped in sediments such as coral structures, and with a faint light, Walter still vaguely saw that the ship was full of artifacts, and this discovery made Waltera excited.
Looking at the huge treasure that was about to surface in front of him, Watfa couldn't wait to start salvaging the shipwreck. First, he first organized the crowd to clean up the sediment on the surface of the shipwreck, so that the entire wreck of the shipwreck was presented intact. Because most of the shipwrecks are sunk in the sea mud, there is no oxygen in the silt, and with the protection of the hull surface, the thick layer of sediment, the hull itself is basically well preserved.
The ship preserves a large number of exquisite porcelain, gold and silver jewelry and precious artifacts. The vast majority of these porcelains came from the Chinese Tang Dynasty, and since then, these exquisite porcelain, gold and silver utensils and precious jewelry have also been salvaged out of the sea.
The place where the shipwreck was discovered had a large black reef, so Watfa decided to name the shipwreck "BlackStone".
Curiously, Watfa went through all the ancient Asian waters about the origin of the ship and found no record of the ship. However, among the recovered porcelain, Walter found that one of the porcelain bowls had several clear Chinese characters written on them: The second year of the Bao calendar, July 16.
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Baoli is the era name of Li Zhan, the thirteenth emperor of the Tang Dynasty of China: Tang Jingzong. The second year of the Bao calendar, that is, the second year of Tang Jingzong's ascension to the throne, was almost around 826 AD, which was the middle and late Tang Dynasty in China.
So will this shipwreck be a Chinese ship?
In order to find out the origin of the "Blackstone", after salvaging the hull out of the water, Walter took a fragment of the hull wood to an archaeological wood research institute to conduct professional dating analysis. Soon, the test results came out.
The results of the test confirmed that the wood used to make the Blackstone was called "Megamu", a mahogany from 700-900 AD, which was only found in ancient times from Senegal to Uganda in Africa. During that time, only the Arabs would use this wood to build ships.
According to this discovery, Walter suspected that the ship may be from Arabia, in order to confirm this speculation, Walterfa invited experts to study the hull structure, after measurement and research, experts found that the captain of the ship is about 18 meters, about 6, 4 meters wide. The bow has a mast, which means that the ship relies on a mast to support the sails. To the great surprise of the experts, on this ship, the experts did not find a single nail to fix the hull, which is made of wooden planks connected by a thin rope made of coconut shell fiber.
Restoration model of the Blackstone
Regarding this method of shipbuilding, it is recorded in the geographical miscellaneous records "Records of The Ridge Table" written by Liu Ke in the late Tang Dynasty:
The Jia ren ship did not use iron nails, but only tied the whiskers, and used olive sugar to mud, the sugar was very dry, and it was like lacquer into the water. ”
That is to say, when this kind of ship is made, it will not use iron nails, only tied with the fibers of the hammer, and this type of boat, also known as the suture sailboat, when making, the workers need to drill holes in the wooden board connection about 2 cm, the position of the holes is 4 cm apart from each other, the whole ship needs to be stitched more than 200,000 needles to complete, between the wooden boards and under the sutures, the workers will use a special, waterproof bark, so as to prevent the hull drilling leakage.
Boats made in this way, even if they are sailing in rough seas, can ensure that water does not leak. Such ships can still be found in the Oman region of today's Africa. Experts believe that this is a sdhow-stitched sailing ship.
Such sailing ships have no engines and rely entirely on natural winds to sail at sea. Based on the materials and manufacturing process of the hull, experts believe that the ship should have been built by arabs.
If so, why did this Arab ship, filled with Chinese porcelain, sink in Indonesian waters?
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In the process of cleaning up the goods, the staff was surprised to find that on the "Black Stone" there were a large number of goods, including copper mirrors, spice jars, water pots, gold and silverware and Tang Dynasty coins, with a rich variety, with a total of more than 60,000 pieces, but the largest of them was porcelain, accounting for 98% of the total.
Although they have been sleeping in the sea for thousands of years, these porcelains are still brilliant and new in color. One of them is a white glazed green ribbon handle pot, which is particularly eye-catching. This pot is about 1 meter high, with a long neck and round belly, flared feet, a handle on the edge of the mouth and shoulders, and a snake head on the top of the handle, which can still be said to be exquisite and vivid even from today's point of view.
Among these many porcelains, three are tang dynasty underglaze blue and white porcelain, which were produced in Gongxian kilns near Luoyang in the Tang Dynasty. This is also the earliest and most complete preservation of Chinese blue and white porcelain. This shows that as early as the Tang Dynasty, China can already fire blue and white porcelain, but unlike the blue and white porcelain that is well known today, the blue and white porcelain of the Tang Dynasty has a glazed pottery feeling, which is because the blue and white porcelain of the Tang Dynasty uses medium and low temperature firing.
The remaining porcelain, except for some from Yuezhou celadon and northern porcelain, most of the rest are from Changsha kilns, there are more than 57,000 pieces, among the cultural relics that have been excavated, there has never been such a large number of Changsha kiln porcelain.
Almost 50,000 of these porcelain from the Changsha kiln are porcelain bowls, which are brightly colored and richly decorated, in addition to the traditional Chinese paintings of flowers, birds and cordyceps, there are also foreign patterns including Arab portraits and texts. Some porcelain even have inscriptions inscribed on the Koran, which is almost invisible in tang dynasty porcelain found in China.
The exotic pattern, no doubt, is to conform to the aesthetics of the buyer, and this discovery shows from the side that this batch of porcelain from the Changsha kiln was made for export.
Changsha kiln has long been considered an earthen kiln, and its porcelain is often synonymous with rough and cheap. But these porcelains on the Black Stone tell us that as early as the Tang Dynasty, Changsha kilns had already gone abroad and exported overseas, and were deeply loved by overseas people.
In addition, there are about 30 copper mirrors on the "Black Stone", and among the copper mirrors that come out of the water, there are bronze mirrors from the Han Dynasty and Sui Dynasty, but the largest number is the grape mirror of the early Tang Dynasty. Among them, there is a "Jiang Xin Mirror" that has attracted the attention of everyone.
According to the inscription on the mirror: Tang Qianyuan was created on november 29, 2011 in the Yangtze River, and experts speculate that this mirror was made around 759. The earliest record of the "Jiangxin Mirror" was found in 710 AD, when the ancients believed that it was a bronze mirror with magical powers, and that the Jiangxin Mirror was only produced in Yangzhou. In addition, the Black Stone also found a lot of gold and silver ware that only Yangzhou can make with exquisite craftsmanship and exquisite patterns.
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Exotic porcelain patterns, goods from all over the country, all of which indicate that this is a merchant ship from Arabia.
At the top of the Persian Gulf, there is a port called El Ubra, which connects to the Tigris River, which the Arabs call "a port to Bahrain, Oman and China." According to historical records, as early as 636 AD, China already had a certain amount of trade activities with the Arabs. The BlackStone provides us with the first physical proof in history of Arab trade in China.
Thus, the question above: why this Arab ship, filled with Chinese porcelain, sank in Indonesian waters seems to have an answer.
Around 830 AD, an Arab merchant ship came from the west to the most important port of the Tang Empire at that time: Yangzhou. At that time, Yangzhou was the largest and most important ceramics market and export port in China. Experts speculate that the large quantity of porcelain found on the Blackstone is most likely purchased by Arab traders from Yangzhou.
Along the way, they relied on the sun and stars to navigate, and looked for the way forward by observing the most primitive methods such as land representations and identifying local plants. After purchasing in Yangzhou, he went all the way north to Guangzhou. In Guangzhou, the merchants on the Blackstone carefully packed the purchased porcelain, supplemented the water and food needed for the ocean, and began their own return voyage in the winter monsoon.
However, this time the return voyage is not as smooth as before,
When the merchant ship, loaded with cargo, departed from Guangzhou and sailed off the waters of Sumatra, near the Indonesian island of Belitung, a sudden and strong storm caused the BlackStone to crash into a black reef. Although the ship , which is "stitched" up by the ropes condensed from fiber plant fibers, has an irreproachable waterproof performance to some extent, it cannot withstand strong storms, and therefore, this Arab merchant ship full of Chinese treasures can only be hidden in the sea from then on, quietly waiting for the discovery of posterity.
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As for the precious porcelain on the ship, after the Blackstone was completely salvaged, Walter originally wanted to return the porcelain to their hometown, China. However, because at the time of the salvage, Waterfa had signed an agreement with the Indonesian salvage company to prohibit the sale of blackstone artifacts. 而他们开出的4000万美金，在当时差不多这和人民币3亿元，着实是一笔巨款，没有哪个博物馆能一下子拿出这么多钱，所以最终不了了之。
In the end, all the artifacts on the "BlackStone" were funded by the descendants of Singapore hotel tycoon Chu Tak Pa, who assisted Singapore Sentosa Leisure Group to purchase them for $30 million, and settled in Singapore permanently in 2005, and is currently in the Collection of Cho Tak Pae Art Gallery at the Asian Civilisation Museum in Singapore.
Although these cultural relics eventually returned to the hands of the Chinese, but they could not return to their homeland, I have to say that there are still some regrets, what do you think?