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