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The earliest records of Chinese contact with the Southeast Asian region was during the Han Dynasty. Ancient Chinese porcelains, which are highly durable , bear testimony to the existence of the trade and cultural exchange. The Chinese traded them for spices, aromatic and other exotic products, such as kingfisher feather, rhinoceros horns and pearls and etc, from the region. In Southeast Asia Chinese porcelains were highly treasured and being kept as family heirlooms and used as funerary objects, many of which have been excavated and could be found in museums and private collections. The lucrative maritime trade had enabled many adventurous merchants to accumulate great wealth But it was also the cause of many human tragedies. For those who made the hazardous journeys, both merchants and sailors, they had to overcome storms, pirates and treacherous reefs. Many succumbed to the dangers. Over more than two thousand years of maritime trade, the ocean floor of the South China sea has become the graveyard of numerous shipwrecks. In view of the high commercial values, numerous salvage operations both legal and illegal were made to recover the artifacts. Among the finds, those from the Hatcher cargo, Diana cargo, Nanking cargo and Tek Sing cargo, were auctioned off with great success by reputable auction houses. However, the biggest discovery so far of sunken treasure was the Late Tang wreck in waters near the Bangka-Belitung islands in Sumatra. In 1998, Tilman Walterfang, a German treasure hunter, found over 60,000 artifacts -- ceramics, coins and glassware from the wreck. It consisted of mainly Changsha wares and a small quantity of Xing white ware and 3 pieces of very rare Blue and white wares. Walterfang sold most of the ancient ceramics to the Singapore government in 2005 for US$32 million Many more wrecks will inevitably be discovered and the artifacts be recovered in future. According to the latest research by the Indonesia Navy and the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry , there are at least 463 shipwrecks scattered throughout the country's seas. Just in the year 2006, a number of seizures of shipwreck artifacts were
made by the Indonesian Navy and Police. In Jan 2006, the Indonesian
authority was involved in a controversial seizure of thousands
of pieces of ancient ceramics, from a warehouse. The salvage
operation was carried out by PT PPS and a Belgium-based salvaging company,
Cosmix. They claimed to have the legal permit to salvage the
artifacts from the wreck near Cirebon. So far, more than 300,000
pieces, mainly Yue wares from the Five Dynasty Period have been salvaged
and are estimated to at around US$40 million. Prior to the seizure,
there was unconfirmed news that Christie's auction house had agreed to
organize an auction for the materials in Amsterdam in December 2006.On Mar
11, the Navy confiscated four ships believed to have illegally
salvaged over 260 pieces of ancient ceramic from the South China Sea,
several miles off the coast of Pontianak in West Kalimantan. Several
days earlier, the Navy intercepted another ship, which was about to leave
Indonesian waters. Hundreds of antique pieces of ceramic were
recovered from the ship.
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