Smithsonian.com An 800-Year-Old Shipwreck Helps Archaeologists Piece Together Asia's Maritime Trade (Lorraine Boissoneault) (original) (raw)

The Flying Fish Wreck: an Early 12th Century Southeast Asian Ship with a Chinese Cargo

Sabah Museum Journal, 2020

The Flying Fish Wreck derives its name from the freely painted decoration in the centre of one of the first finds, a large stoneware basin. The graceful gliding flying fish design is known from the Cizao kilns of Fujian Province, China, but it has ever been seen in a shipwreck cargo before. The wreck lies just south of Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah, East Malaysia. This report is the outcome of an archaeological excavation conducted in conjunction with the Sabah Museum. Maritime archaeologist, Dr Michael Flecker, concludes that the Flying Fish Wreck is a Southeast Asian lashed-lug ship, following a shipbuilding tradition that lasted for over a thousand years. She has been dated to the first quarter of the 12th century, corresponding to the late Northern Song dynasty, when the Chinese export trade was flourishing. Most of the ceramics cargo was manufactured in Fujian province, suggesting that Quanzhou was the port of embarkation. The ship followed the eastern route down the South China Sea bound for northwest Borneo. Dr Tai Yew Seng, a Chinese ceramics specialist, contributes a comprehensive analysis of every ceramic type excavated from the wreck. Non-ceramic artefacts include wrought and cast iron, and lead ingots and rings, along with ship’s equipment, personal belongings, and one of the original voyagers, whose bones survived deep inside the wreckage.