The Journey The Fire
and The Salvage
The Discovery of the wreck
In June 1998 a news story headlined ‘Treasure from the bottom of the sea’
appeared in a Vietnamese newspaper. Its report was of fishermen working off the
southernmost tip of Vietnam whose nets had snagged on a wreck filled with
Chinese porcelain. They soon found that the porcelain was early 18th
Century and saleable and then began the scramble to dredge up as much as
possible.
The wreck was located ninety nautical miles south of the Ca Mau peninsular
which is on the old trade route from Kuangzhou, or Canton as it was known to
foreigners, southwards to the Malay archipelago and Jakarta which was then the
Dutch trading port known as Batavia.
As soon as the news broke the Government moved quickly and the Ministry of
Culture and information coordinated arrangments to gather a flotilla of ships,
diving crew, conservators, security guards and video equipment to record the
work as it proceeded. The whole team was Vietnamese and from the academic side
it was led by Dr Nguyen Dinh Chien, the Chief Curator of the National Museum of
Vietnamese Culture who was appointed chairman of the Ca Mau Ancient Ship
Excavation Committee and later wrote the book about the excavations. His own
account follows on pg 10 of the Sotheby’s Amsterdam Catalogue.
Two Seasons of Excavations
Amazingly, within twelve weeks of the news breaking the team started work. The
wreck was in water thirty two to thirty six metres deep and as a result the
divers, who worked in shifts, could only stay down on the excavation site for
thirty minutes before having to return to the surface with fourteen minutes in
decompression.
The first task was to survey the site and during this process it became clear
that when the ship sank it tipped to one side and some porcelain spilled out
covering an area of four hundred and fifty square metres. Some was damaged on impact, but huge
quantities had survived resting on the seabed for two hundred and eighty years
largely under a protective layer of silt.
When the divers had reached the site the
seabed was a scene of devastation with torn nets as evidence of the fishermens
dredging. Broken porcelain scattered everywhere. While the excavation and
salvage work was in progress the government required the fishermen to return
the porcelain from this illict work and 32,500 pieces were handed back and were
included in the Sotheby’s Auction.
The first job for the divers was to set out the whole site with two metre
squares of metal rods so that the location of all the recoveries could be
mapped.
The weather was bad that season and this, combined with the nessecary
preparatory work, meant that only nine thousand pieces of porcelain were
recovered and these included many in bad condition which were not included in
the Sotheby’s Auction. With the onset of winter diving was suspended in Januray
1999 but restarted in April. Working in the same systematic way, the first task
was to remove large quantities of sand which had protected the porcelain, as
the sand was cleared it was possible to see how professionally the porcelain
had been packed. The tea bowls and saucers had been in pine wood barrels sixty
centermetres in diameter, with the saucers set on their sides and nested
together in circles, layer upon layer. Being deep in the silt these had escaped
the fishermen.
All were loaded into plastic baskets to be hauled to the surface. Each basket was labelled with the location in
which it had been found.
In 1999 a total of 51,500 pieces in good and bad condition were recovered.
Once the porcelain had been ferried to the shore it was properly washed and
stored in warehouses where it was carefully sorted and all the patterns were
photographed and catalogued and Dr Nguyen Dinh Chien prepared the manuscript of
the book The Ca Mau Shipwreck which was published in 2002.
The museums in Vietnam were also given the opportunity to acquire a
comprehensive selection of the porcelain for exhibition as well as the seals
and all the artefacts. In 2005 the Vietnamese Government decided to sell what
was not required, so, of the 130,000 pieces of porcelain which were recovered
in good or reasonable condition 76,000 were selected for sale and were included
in the Sotheby’s Auction. The rest remained in publish ownership in Vietnam.
In 2006 the porcelain was packed for shipment so that after a delay of 280
years this cargo could complete its journey to Europe.
The Ship
At the outset there was no evidence to indicate whether the ship was Oriental
European. However, from the shapes and designs of the porcelain it was clear
that the main part of the cargo had been made for the European market. As time
went by it became clear that it was almost certainly a Chinese ocean going
junk. The few remaining timbers were analysed and found to be of Nageia
Wallichiana, a broad leaved conifer of the family Podocarpaceae which is a tree
widely disperced in the Far East and used in shipbuilding. In addition all the
artefacts found were Chinese. These included bronze bowls, padlocks, boxes,
lamps and coins of the Kangxi period as well as an ink stone and crucially two
stone carved seals. The ownership of the seals and possibly therefore of the
junk and the cargo, is discussed by Paul Van Dyke in an article on pg 14 of the
Sotheby’s Auction catalogue.
The Journey and The Sinking
The fact that it was a Chinese junk explained the location of the ship before
it sank. The route for the junks trading with the Malaysian Archipelago, Java
and Sumatra started in Canton and then followed the coast of Vietnam before
crossing the Gulf of Thailand. In contrast European ships sailed south through
the South China Sea direct to Batavia.
The cause of the wreck also became clear.
The junk was unarmed so presumably expected a peaceful journey on this
busy route. For some reason there was a fire on board of such intensity that
some of the porcelain was fused together and actually warped from the heat. To
achieve this result, the fire must have reached a temperature of 1400
Fahrenheit or 760 centigrade. Also cast iron works were fused together which
perhaps indicates the kitchen was the cause of the outbreak. As the fire must
have burned for a considerable time presumably the crew and the owner of the
seals, Pan Tingcai, had time to escape.
The Date of the Wreck and Porcelain
There were two indicators of the date. The first was a series of blue and white
wine cups bearing the mark of the Emperor Yongzheng who reigned for only
fourteen years, from 1723-1735. The second was some bronze coins of the reign
of the Emperor Kangxi who died in 1722. In addition other blue and white wine
cups of exactly the same shape and same decoration bore the marks ‘Ruo Shen
Zhen Cang meaning ‘In the collection of Ruoshen’ a mark normally used during
the Kangxi period. Furthermore, many other patterns and the style of painting
seems to indicate that the date of the manufacture of the porcelain is early in
the reign of Yongzheng.
The China Trade in the early 18th
Century
Tea and coffee had become the rage throughout Europe. Mocha, a port in the Red
Sea was the source of most of the coffee which was grown in Ethiopia but China
was the supplier of tea. The demand was escalating fast early in the 18th
Century and the principal traders were the East India Company of London and the
VOC of Amsterdam. At the same time ships from the Austrian Netherlands
(Ostenders) France, Denmark, Sweden and the Americans were also trading there.
The Cargoes varied but by far the largest expenditure was tea with silk second
and then porcelain. The Chinese were reluctant to trade with the West and so to
keep control the Europeans were tightly restricted to the port of Canton and
trading was at all times difficult. The Dutch found it easier to deal with the
Chinese traders bringing their wares by junk to Batavia and only in 1729 did
the first two ships from the Netherlands arrive in Canton.
The East India Companies, with their
need to satisfy the demand for tea, also had to have in mind that tea drinking
demanded porcelain and so most of what they imported in these years was tea
wares. Pictures of the period show that cups with handles were not generally in
use either for tea or coffee, a fact is borne out by this cargo and the many
others of which there are full records. The few cups with handles are
relatively tall and narrow and may well have been for chocolate which was a
newly fashionable drink.
In addition to the passion for tea there
were also said to be fifteen hundred coffee houses in London alone and coffee
houses were spread across Europe. In the Ottoman Empire the preference was for
coffee which has always and still is often drunk from small bowls and cups. The
Armenian traders may well have been aiming to satisfy this demand.
The Ca Mau Shipwreck by Dr Nguyen Dinh Chien
Introduction
The Ca Mau wreck as first reported on the daily newspaper Tuoi Tre (Youth) on 5
May 1998. Accordingly, the authority of Binh Thuan province had confiscated 32
569 artifacts and 2,4 tones of metal objects recovered illegally by two
fishermen from a shipwreck off the coast of Ca Mau province.
Informed by the Binh Thuan Culture
department, the Vietnam Ministry of Culture and information sent two members of
the National Antiquity Council, Dr Nguyen Dinh Chien and associate Professor
Nguyen Bich, to the province.
Two experts dated 33 978 artifacts,
mainly ceramics, to the Yongzheng reign of the Qing dynasty (1723-1735).
Afterward, the recoveries, coded as CM1, were handed over to the Binh Thuan
Museum.
Also in May, an excavation of the wreck was organized spontaneously by the Ca
Mau Department of Fisheries, but the Ca Mau authority stopped it soon. All the
finds coded as CM2, were sent to the Ca Mau Museum.
The wreck was located some 90 miles
south of Ca Mau Cap, in 36 m of water.
Following the decision issued on
22-6-1998 by the Ministry of Culture and Information, The National Museum of
Vietnamese History (NMVH) was assigned to cooperate with the Ca Mau Culture
Department, The Vietnam Salvage Company (Visal) and other authorities concerned
to carry out the survey and excavation. An excavation Committee was set up with
Dr Nguyen Dinh Chien (NMVH) as the head and Lam Minh Chau (Visal) as deputy
head.
The Ca Mau authority also set up a
Steering Committee to supervise the excavation and conservation of artifacts.
The Ca Mau Museum provided security men to oversee the site and four staffs to
the excavation. Visal appointed a diving team of 14 persons who were equipped
with helmets attached with video camera, masks, suits, knives, communication
systems and oxygen bottles. Among divers, many had taken part in the
excavations of Hon Cau Wreck in 1990 and Hon Dam wreck in 1991.
Excavation Spread and Methods
My A, the Visals 53,34 m long 3,oooBHP salvage ship was used as the base for
the excavation, that is a ship with two engines, one propeller of 200 BHP, one
motor boat of 150 BHP, two containers for 450 tons of water and 206 tons of
diesel. It was provided with necessary facilities, including a crane, two high
pressure water pumps, two air pressure pumps, a power generator for underwater
video cameras, a land video camera, two still cameras and two intercom
equipment’s.
The excavation was officially commenced
when my A departed from Vung Tau on 8-8-1998. On 14-8 the ship arrived on site.
On 15-8, the site was marked and the 2m x 2mgrid squares were positioned. A
dive control room was set up on deck, where the archeologists and the diving
operation director monitored the dives through communication systems and
recorded the progress of excavation in their site diaries. In good weather
conditions, divers worked in pairs with six shifts per day. Each sack of
artifacts hauled up was numbered, desalinated, sorted and packed into
baskets. Each basket was accompanied by
information on type, status, divers name , diving shift, time lead seals by
staff of the Ca Mau Museum. All baskets were kept in separate compartments,
inside sweater holding tanks to present drying before their transfer to shore.
Due to the bad weather conditions, the
excavation was halted on 24-1-1999, the second excavation commenced. But for
unfavorable weather conditions and technical troubles, it lasted only 24 days
(from 20-4 to 7-6-1999) As a result, 51.438 artifacts were recovered, but their
poor state revealed that the site had
been damaged seriously by fishermen’s clandestine intrusions. On 16-10-1999 the
excavation had ended and the site was officially closed. The excavation of the
Ca Mau Shipwreck was the first project of its kind entirely carried out by the
Vietnamese human and financial resources.
The Hull Remains
As observed, the Ca Mau wreck was heavily damaged by the fire before sinking.
The hull was nearly destroyed, therefore, only a few of its structural features
had been recorded. From bow to stern, the ship measured approx. 24 m long and
almost 8 m across. The remaining section pf a mast, 20cm high by 30cm in
diameter was found 10-4m from the bow and 0-5m off the centre. Four beams
measured 1.49 x 25cm, 4m x 25cm, 3m x 25cm and 8m x 30cm respectively. The
longitudinal planks were 6,5 cm thick and 35cm wide. Both iron and wooden nails
were used for fixing them at 25cm intervals. Wood samples have been identified
as Kim Giao (Nagera Wallichiana (Presl) kuntze, a species found widely in
Southern India, Southern China and Southeast Asia.