Singapore's Sentosa Island bids to buy sunken treasure

Singapore's Sentosa Island bids to buy sunken treasure

Negotiations are under way to buy 60,000 pieces of Tang Dynasty
artifacts recovered from a sunken ship in Indonesian waters for
Singapore's Sentosa Island, The Sunday Times reported.

Whether the deal goes through depends on the level of interest
and if enough funds can be raised, said Pamelia Lee, managing
director of Southern Islands Development, a unit of the Sentosa
Development Corporation.

The price was placed in the millions of dollars.

The ninth century cargo is being considered as the centerpiece
of a maritime museum that is part of a 10-year master plan to
attract eight million visitors annually by 2012 to the resort
island from forecasts of 4.5 million this year.

The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) expects the investment to
reap dividends many times over in terms of attracting visitors.

"This fits into the direction that we'd intend to move in, to
have a center that represents maritime history over the
centuries," Darrell Metzger, chief executive officer of the
Sentosa Leisure Group, was quoted as saying.

The ship, believed to be of Arab origin, is the earliest
vessel discovered in Southeast Asia to date.

The trove will be exhibited in Singapore in the middle of next
year. Among the items are a blue-and-white plate with the year
A.D. 826 printed on it. Islamic and Buddhist symbols appear on
some of the bowls.

The ship, thought to be bound for Saudi Arabia, confirms there
was a seaborne trading route from China to the Arab countries,
historians told the newspaper.

The blue-and-white pieces indicate that ceramic technology
started 400 years earlier than previously thought, said Heidi
Tan, senior curator at the Asian Civilizations Museum.

"This is a one-off find that's a time capsule which will raise
a lot of interest among the experts," she was quoted as saying.

Indonesian fisherman chanced upon the 27-meter vessel in 1998
preserved in mud near the island of Belitung between Sumatra and
Borneo, likely wrecked on underwater reefs.

Germany company Seabed Explorations, headed by Tilman
Walterfang, obtained the rights from the Indonesian government to
excavate the shipwreck.

He approached Sentosa, which acquired the rights to exhibit
the artifacts and an option to buy the treasure. -- DPA