Trương Vệ ,Giám đốc Trung tâm Khảo cổ dưới nước của Trung
Quốc và là người đứng đẩu trong cuộc khảo cứu thuyền Nam Hải 01 ,ông đã giành cả
20 năm trời cho việc khảo cứu này,bắt đầu từ năm 1987 là lúc phát hiện ra con
thuyền này .
Tháng Chín năm 2007 là tháng kỷ niệm 20 năm ngày thành
lập Trung tâm Khảo cổ Dưới nước Trung Quốc . Chỉ trrong vòng 20 năm , ngành khảo
cổ dưới nước của Trung Quốc đã đạt trình độ thế giới, vượt xa cả Hàn Quốc và
Nhật ,và đình cao là xây được Bảo tàng con thuyền Nam Hải 01 hay còn gọi là "
Bảo tàng con đường Tơ lụa của Trung Quốc" Con thuyền dài 25 mét , nặng 3800 tấn
được bốc toàn bộ từ đáy biển và trưng bày trong bảo tàng, duy trì một môi trường
với chất lượng nước, nhiệt độ, điều kiện môi trường hệt như lúc nó nằm dưới đáy
biển .Khách tham quan có thể trông thấy các nhà khảo cổ đang lặn làm việc . Con
thuyền đó được cho là đã hoạt động buôn bán trong vùng Biển Đông , với 5 vạn tới
7 vạn các di vật còn nằm lại trong thuyền .
Trung tâm Khảo cổ Dưới nước của Trung Quốc được thành lập
năm 1987 và Zhang Wei là giám đốc đầu tiên của Trung tâm này .Zhang tốt nghiệp
khảo cổ tại Đại học Bắc kinh năm 1982 và được cử đi Hà Lan học lặn .Tháng 8/1987
,tại ven bờ đảo Shangchuan và Xiachuan (Thượng Xuyên và Hạ Xuyên . dưới Macao ,
trên Maoming ) ,đội lặn hợp tác giữa Anh và Trung Quốc phát hiện xác một chiếc
thuyền gỗ với nhiều đồ sứ và kim loại .Người Anh muốn tiếp tục nhưng Ủy ban Di
sản Trung Quốc cho dừng lại .
Nhìn thấy những mảnh sứ , Zhang Wei cho là con thuyền này
hoạt động trên con đường tơ lụa .Lúc này việc khảo cổ dưới nước của Trung Quốc
còn quá yếu .Zhang tổ chức lớp lặn đầu tiên và đi sang Mỹ tìm học từ người cha
khảo cổ dưới nước , ông ing and established an underwater archaeology team. He
went to the USA for some short-term training under George Bass, the father of
underwater archaeology, in 1989.
Salvage on the sunken ship started in November 1989. The
ship was dubbed the "Nanhai No.1" (South China Sea No.1). Due to his simple
equipment, he only reached one part of the ship and retrieved a piece of
porcelain from it.
Research was suspended for ten years due to a money and
labor shortage. But the Nanhai No.1 lived on in Zhang Wei's heart. In 2001 his
team expanded into 40 members. Wei received HK$1.2 million from the Hong Kong
Underwater Archaeology Association as a supporting grant. He also bought a map
drawn by a British sailor who attended the 1987 salvage of the Nanhai No.1.
When they located the ship, they first drew an outline of
the ship. They didn't enter the ship until March 2003. They opened a window and
entered a little cabin of the ship. More than 4,000 delicate porcelains were
found in a cupboard.
There are many precious porcelain wares in the ship, but
to Zhang Wei, the ship itself is far more important than the porcelain it
carried. There's few record of the shipbuilding technology 800 years ago in
China. It's also rare in the world.
Mike Hatcher, the man who compelled China's
underwater archaeology to develop
The formation and development of Chinese underwater
archaeology should acknowledge a controversial person named Mike Hatcher. He is
a world famous salvage diver, an adventurous explorer and world-renowned
treasure hunter known to many foreign governments. To the field of Chinese
underwater archaeology his name equates with disaster.
Mike Hatcher discovered the wreck of Geldermalsen (or the
Nanking cargo) in May 1985 in South China Sea.
Geldermalsen, built in 1746, was a vessel belonging to
the Dutch East India Company (VOC). It traveled the usual tea trade route
between China's Guangdong and the Netherlands. Besides a cargo of valuable tea
the ship also held a cargo of gold and a large cargo of porcelain stored in the
lower decks as ballast. In January 1752 it sank into the sea.
Mike Hatcher eventually brought up an amazing haul
consisting of much of the gold and over 150,000 pieces of porcelain. The
ceramics originated from the Jingdezhen region, often termed the "Porcelain
Capital of China" because of the area's high-quality porcelain productions.
The Chinese government was shocked to learn of these
treasures being auctioned at Christies in Amsterdam in April 1986. The Chinese
government researched many laws: the United Nations Convention on the Law of the
Sea and many other countries sea laws but officials couldn't find any reference
to legally bind Hatcher to return these assets to China.
There are only two articles referring to the underwater
heritage exploration in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea --
Articles 149 and 303. They say, "All objects of an archaeological and historical
nature found in the area shall be preserved or disposed of for the benefit of
mankind as a whole, particular regard being paid to the preferential rights of
the State or country of origin, or the State of cultural origin, or the State of
historical and archaeological origin." The rules in the law are mostly unclear,
so it makes the "country of origin" can't recall their lost antiques according
to the law.
The Chinese archaeologists had only one choice -- to buy
them at the auction. China was still a poverty-stricken country at that time.
Two experts on Chinese porcelains carrying US$30,000 went to the auction in
Amsterdam. More than 239,000 pieces of porcelain packed two floors of the Hilton
Hotel, where the auction was held.
Christies agreed to give the No.1 bidding paddle to the
two Chinese bidders. But during the three day long auction they had no chance to
raise their bidding paddle because they even couldn't afford the starting price.
They helplessly watched more than 200,000 Chinese antiques going to other
bidders. But Mike Hatcher received more than US$20 million after the auction and
became the richest "salvage diver" at that time.
After the heavy blow dealt by Mike Hatcher, the Chinese
government decided to found a Chinese underwater archaeology team. After
establishing this team, Zhang Wei started competing with all the greedy robbers
salvaging Chinese marine treasures.
"Although we all aimed to discover ancient relics, there
is an essential difference between archaeologists and ‘treasure seekers':
archaeologists seek to recover the history and protect all the ancient heritage
as well but treasure hunters just want to maximize their profits," Zhang
explained.
Sadly, the tragedy of Tek Sing (also called True Star)
proved Zhang Wei indeed to be correct.
In 1999 Hatcher spent a great deal of money to hire
several archaeology experts. They started to study the Dutch East India Company
Archives. He suddenly found the record of the Tek Sing. The junk Tek Sing was en
route from Amoy off the mainland of China to Java in 1822 when the ship hit a
reef in the South China Sea. The vessel quickly sank; more lives were lost on
this shipwreck than the Titanic. Hence, the Tek Sing is also called the
"Oriental Titanic."
The record stated: the boat was 50 meters long, 10 meters
wide and when it sank into the sea it carried more than one thousand tons of
cargo: more than one million pieces of porcelain. The pottery was made in
Jingdezhen and included bowls, dishes, pouring vessels, storage jars, stoves,
opium containers and even urinals.
They searched for months. When the Tek Sing shipwreck was
located they retrieved millions pieces of porcelain.
The quantity and quality of the Tek Sing cargo is
unusual. Most of the Tek Sing cargo was blue and white porcelain, produced by
painting the decoration onto white porcelain just before the final firing that
applied cobalt oxide. This method has been in use in China from the 12th century
to the present day.
Besides those treasures from the Jingdezhen, many other
types of porcelain from some other famous kilns during Emperor Kangxi's reign
(1662--1722) were located. All these antiques were well protected under the
sea.
The great amount: one million pieces of porcelain,
shocked everybody, but they were more shocked by Hatcher when he commanded them
to smash more than 600,000 pieces and only keep 365,000. Hatcher knew better
than anyone else that in the world culture relics collection market, the rare
things sell higher.
After a nine day auction, Hatcher pocketed more than
US$30 million.
Strive for time with more and more
Hatchers
Treasure hunter Luc Heymans found a sunken boat laden
with rare ceramics that had sank more than 1,000 years ago. The vessel lay
hidden at the bottom of the Java Sea until 2004. The 70-meter-long and
15-meter-wide boat was then identified as belonging to a fleet operating during
ancient China's Five Dynasties period (907 - 960).
This boat was not as large as the "Treasure Boat"
commanded by Zheng He but it was 400 years older, making it a valuable relic
dating to the beginning of the "marine silk road." To date, little information
about the Five Dynasties era exists and very few things sit in the museums. This
wreck fills a gaping hole.
Luc Heymans hid all the excavated treasures in a
warehouse in Indonesia. He reported that he expected to auction the treasure and
that the cargo was valued at several million dollars. But Indonesian police
confiscated his loot until he agreed that Indonesia would receive 50 percent of
proceeds from the sale of the treasures. Sadly, Chinese archaeologists could do
nothing to regain these Chinese treasures.
Another case escaped the notice of the Chinese government
until an auction dispute took place in 2003.
The collection, which includes pieces of Chinese
porcelain and ancient pottery 2,000 years old, was to be auctioned off in August
2003 at Guernsey's in New York. The Guernsey auction house decided to suspend
the event after receiving letters questioning whether the deep sea explorer Phil
Greco had obtained the necessary permits from the Philippine National Museum in
Manila.
"Although Greco claimed that all his collections were
discovered from the coast of the Philippines, obviously, most of them were from
the Chinese seaboard," Brian Hormann, an archaeologist from Australia
revealed.
"From the marine matter attached in the antiques, I could
confirm it was unearthed around Zhongsha and Xisha Islands of South China Sea,"
Hormann added.
Greco's lawyer revealed, "Greco and his company, Stallion
Recoveries, have retrieved 23,000 artifacts from at least 16 shipwreck sites in
the South China Sea since 1997. Some of the items, including seven massive
statues, date back to the Ming Dynasty."
The American government suspended the Greco auction. But
antiques stored in his house have disappeared one by one. Obviously he auctioned
off his antiques online. His action has aroused the ire of international
archeology experts.
(China.org.cn by Chen Lin, August 31,
2007)