Marine archeology, with a big stick

CHINA has sent its navy to protect marine archeologists on an expedition that salvaged more than 10,000 pieces of antique porcelain from a sunken junk in a campaign against looters and art smugglers.

It is believed to be the first time that China has deployed its armed forces to stop the plunder of its undersea cultural heritage along the ancient shipping routes, which are known in Chinese as the “silk road of the seas”.

Officials on Hainan Island, in the South China Sea, disclosed that naval vessels and units of the People’s Armed Police had accompanied diving teams on the 55-day mission, which ended last week. . .

Navy gunboats and paramilitary guards escorted boats to and from the diving site in Chinese waters, as the archeologists ferried their finds back to Hainan, he said.

The operation came almost four months after collectors had spent about £2m and sent values soaring at a Sotheby’s auction in Amsterdam of 18th-century Chinese export porcelain which had been recovered legally from another wreck off Vietnam. . .

The next showdown between the smugglers and the state is likely to take place over a cluster of wrecks found last year off Fujian province, between Hong Kong and Shanghai.

“A lot of people have rushed to raise, steal and smuggle out these underwater relics,” said a recent edict from the provincial government, ordering police and marine border units to intensify checks on speedboats and to apprehend suspicious strangers. Legislators in Fujian have urged the authorities to offer rewards of more than £30,000 for information on thefts and the smuggling of antiques.

Archeologists lament that many wrecks are damaged by treasure hunting fishermen who drop dynamite into the sea, then collect the debris that comes to the surface.

Posted by David on May 15, 2007 9:24 PM