Nanhai declaration is called "undersea porcelain capital"
In fact, this is not the first time that Hatch has fished treasure from the South China Sea. 1983, he discovered the Ming Dynasty sailing boat in China that sank more than 300 years ago, and it was filled with more than 20,000 pieces of porcelain. These porcelains were sold at an auction in Amsterdam, the Netherlands for $2.5 million, with an average value of 1 12. Hatch, who tasted the sweetness for the first time, has locked in the South China Sea since then. He paid a high price to hire all kinds of "talents"-high flyers, archaeologists, shipwreck researchers, insiders in the eastern waters, and skilled divers. 1999, Hatch found another sunken ship of the Qing Dynasty "Taixing" in the South China Sea, which contained more than/kloc-0.00 million pieces of porcelain from four official kilns in the Kangxi period. In order to facilitate transportation and raise the price, he broke more than 600,000 pieces of ordinary porcelain and shipped the remaining 356,000 pieces to Germany for auction. He made 30 million dollars this time.
The treasure found by Hatch may be just the tip of the iceberg of the underwater treasure buried in the South China Sea. After the 65438+5th century, with the great geographical discovery and the opening of new sea routes, the ocean has become the main channel to communicate with the whole world, and China's "Maritime Silk Road" has gradually become a trade channel connecting East and West. However, in that era of navigation without mechanical power, ships sailing along the Maritime Silk Road would sink at any time, and a ship would sink into the sea almost every 29 hours. Until the beginning of19th century, the proportion of cargo ships sunk by pirates and storms was still as high as 30%-40%.
According to the statistics of the Underwater Archaeological Research Center of the Chinese History Museum, there are 2,000 to 3,000 ancient ships sleeping in the vast sea area of China, most of which are Song and Yuan ships. There are also some foreign shipwrecks such as the British East India Company and Sweden. China ceramics, silk, gold and silver jewelry and other treasures loaded on these ships were submerged by the sea with the sinking of the hull. Some experts said that these sunken ships completely constitute a "submarine porcelain capital", and its number is immeasurable. For archaeologists in China, these underwater collections bear the code of history, and China's history of navigation, overseas trade, port, shipbuilding, immigration, state relations, religion and scientific and cultural exchanges will be continued. However, these precious historical specimens are only equivalent to paper money in the eyes of overseas pirates. Almost at the same time that archaeologists go deep into the seabed, all kinds of people who come for profit also aim at making a fortune.
Overseas fishermen are ambitious.
In Sotheby's, a blue and white porcelain jar of China Yuan Dynasty was sold for 230 million yuan. Such huge commercial interests tempt more and more "hatchers" to join the wreck salvage team. Since the 1970s and 1980s, they have spared no expense and used various means to search for underwater cultural relics in various sea areas. At the same time, some Southeast Asian countries, such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and other countries that are unable to salvage underwater cultural relics in their territorial waters, have also begun to cooperate with western treasure-seeking salvage companies. They issue licenses to these companies, allowing them to fish for treasures in territorial waters, and then share the profits with the issuing countries. However, the exploration scope of these western companies is usually not limited to the territorial waters of the issuing countries, but they will secretly sneak into the waters of China to steal underwater cultural relics. As a result, the South China Sea became a "paradise" for them to satisfy their desires. Stealing, stealing, smuggling, auction ... The treasure that has been lying on the seabed of China for thousands of years is also lost through hidden commercial channels.
Phil greco, an American veteran who participated in the Vietnam War, stole tens of thousands of China antiques through cooperation with the Philippine government. In order to "develop" the South China Sea treasure, greco lived in the Philippines for at least 10 years, and collected information about the sunken ship bit by bit from the stories of local fishermen. According to South China Sea media reports, from 1997 to 2002, greco successively found 16 sunken ships in the Philippines and salvaged about 23,000 antiques. All these cultural relics were shipped back to America by him. Journalists from National Geographic and The New York Times have been to his residence in Los Angeles. According to their description, there are several giant vases more than two people high in greco's garden; There are many exquisite porcelain bowls and pottery dishes on the ground at will. "The whole home is a small China Antique Museum!" The developed internet makes it easy for greco to bypass the legal obstacles of public auction of cultural relics and sell antiques to private collectors. This made the Philippine government extremely angry. It issued an arrest warrant and asked the United States to extradite him to the Philippines. But the United States refused to cooperate.
Tillman Folta, a 50-year-old German engineer, has an ambition to "catch" the most important underwater treasure in the South China Sea in the next few years. 1998, he found tens of thousands of well-preserved ceramic products on the seabed more than 20 meters deep in the sea near Indonesia's Brittong Island (between the South China Sea and the Java Sea). The waterway named this underwater treasure house "Blackstone". In the next three years, he fished out 60,000 Tang Dynasty cultural relics, including ceramic flagons, tea bowls and gold and silver tableware engraved with relief. It is speculated that "Blackstone" is likely to hit the rocks when crossing Java Island and sink in the storm. According to the research of China people, there are quite a variety of Changsha kiln porcelain on Blackstone, and a large part of it has never appeared in China. The blue and white porcelain on the Blackstone is also the earliest found and the most intact, which is of great significance to the study of China's Maritime Silk Road. However, in the contact between several domestic museums and Shuidao, Shuidao insisted on packaging most of Blackstone's cultural relics and selling them at a price of at least 300 million yuan, which was unbearable for domestic museums. Since the beginning of this year, Vodafone has extended his treasure fishing tools to the South China Sea in China. According to the estimation of Indonesian Ministry of Marine Fisheries, there are at least 463 cargo ship wrecks in the South China Sea around Indonesia, many of which are over 1 0,000 years old. In view of the "achievements" of the waterway, the Indonesian government intends to hand over all 463 sunken ships in the South China Sea to the treasure exploration company of the waterway.
Luc hymans, a Belgian financial investor, is also a "partner" of Indonesian government. In September, 2004, hymans investigated a 10 century China shipwreck. This ship is very big, 70 meters long and 15 meters wide. He sat on the fleet for 19 months, commanded the diving team to dive for 20,000 times, and salvaged nearly 250,000 treasures one by one. Among them, the most amazing are those porcelains: the decorative patterns on the plates are rare birds such as dragons and parrots; You can clearly see the patterns of lotus flowers on the teapot; The glaze on celadon is complete. Paul Desluk, an expert at the Paris Museum, said to hymans, "Do you know what you have caught? Shipwrecks in the 10 century are extremely rare. Our understanding of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms is very pale, and there are few cultural relics in the museum. This ship filled the gap. " When salvaging this sunken ship during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, hymans also found a "bigger unidentified object" in the nearby waters, but the waters where Shenbao is located are quite sensitive and disputed by Indonesia and China. Just as he was about to "start work" on the new treasure, Indonesian police suddenly seized his treasure warehouse in Jakarta and accused him of "illegally fishing for treasure". Hymans speculated that the Indonesian government, which had mastered the technology of salvaging "Treasure", wanted to let him go.
Treasure hunt fever will destroy many treasures.
Apart from international pirates, there are also many cultural relics dealers in China who are staring at the treasures in the South China Sea. Although China legislated to protect underwater cultural relics as early as 1989, the ancient ship cultural relics found were looted by some local fishermen. When they fish, they sometimes drag porcelain or ancient coins out of the net, and when they know that there are sunken ships and treasures below, they take the opportunity to salvage them, and it is even more impossible to steal these underwater cultural relics in an organized and large scale. Andy, director of China Underwater Archaeological Center, told this reporter that in China, the "buying and selling" of stolen underwater cultural relics has even formed a very smooth channel and market. However, whether it is domestic or international piracy, it will not only cause the loss of cultural relics in China, but also destroy the archaeological value of these cultural relics.
China Underwater Archaeological Center was established in 1987 to rescue underwater cultural relics in China. Nanhai No.1, an ancient shipwreck in the Southern Song Dynasty, is about to surface, which is a masterpiece of this center. Andy said that at present, the primary problem that restricts underwater archaeology in China is funding. Overseas underwater archaeology is sponsored by enterprises, but at present, only one enterprise in China has contributed 1 10,000 yuan to the salvage of Nanhai No.1 ... Andy said that a coastal survey would cost more than 6,543,800 yuan, a trip to Xisha would cost 3 million yuan, a diving suit would cost more than 4,000 yuan, and even a deep-sea lamp would cost 6,543,800 yuan. Underwater archaeology is undoubtedly an expensive industry. George bass, an American archaeologist known as the "father of underwater archaeology", even suggested that China should not engage in underwater archaeology because it would cost too much money.
Why are thieves unscrupulous?
As for why foreign salvage companies can frequently sneak into China waters for commercial fishing, or salvage China sunken ships in other waters, experts analyze that this is because the definition of marine cultural heritage is too vague in both international law and domestic law.
Lin Canling, a professor of international law at China University of Political Science and Law, believes that at present, China's relevant cultural relics law stipulates that "cultural relics left in China's internal waters, territorial waters and sea areas under the jurisdiction of China according to China's laws, whether they come from China or overseas, belong to China. China has the right to determine the owners of cultural relics on the high seas left in other jurisdictional waters outside China's territorial waters and originating from China. " . However, no matter in theory or practice, such a legal system is not accurate and perfect enough. For cultural relics that can be identified in other sea areas of China as originating in China, only the right of identification is stipulated, that is to say, only the "territorial principle" of cultural relics is applied, and the "property principle" of cultural relics is not pursued, which is obviously not conducive to the protection of cultural relics ownership in China. Some western countries, such as Britain, adopt the double principle, which is beneficial for them to recover cultural relics. In addition, China's laws have not made any relevant provisions on the ownership of marine cultural heritage in the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf, and these areas have special status.
At the same time, the current international United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea also leaves legal loopholes for commercial fishing. The convention stipulates that cultural relics with archaeological and historical value found on the seabed under national jurisdiction should be protected; In addition, it is particularly emphasized that "the priority of the country of origin (the country of cultural origin or the country of historical archaeology) should be paid attention to"; However, most of these provisions in the Convention are vague in concept and lack of practical operation, which makes it difficult for the country of origin to recover its due rights.