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Centuries ago, a ship sank in the Java Sea off the coast of Indonesia. The wooden hull disintegrated over time, leaving only a treasure trove of cargo. The ship had been carrying thousands of ceramics and luxury goods for trade, and they remained on the ocean floor until the 1980s when the wreck was discovered by fishermen. In the years since, archaeologists have been studying artifacts retrieved from the shipwreck to piece together where the ship was from and when it departed. The equivalent of a "Made in China" label on a piece of pottery helped archaeologists reevaluate when the ship went down and how it fits in with China's history.
"Initial investigations in the 1990s dated the shipwreck to the mid- to late 13th century, but we've found evidence that it's probably a century older than that," says Lisa Niziolek, an archaeologist at the Field Museum in Chicago and lead author of the study in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. "Eight hundred years ago, someone put a label on these ceramics that essentially says 'Made in China' -- because of the particular place mentioned, we're able to date this shipwreck better."
The ship was carrying ceramics marked with an inscription that might indicate they were made in Jianning Fu, a government district in China. But after the invasion of the Mongols around 1278, the area was reclassified as Jianning Lu. The slight change in the name tipped Niziolek and her colleagues off that the shipwreck may have occurred earlier than the late 1200s, as early as 1162.
Niziolek notes that the likelihood of a ship in the later "Jianning Lu" days carrying old pottery with the outdated name is slim. "There were probably about a hundred thousand pieces of ceramics onboard. It seems unlikely a merchant would have paid to store those for long prior to shipment -- they were probably made not long before the ship sank," says Niziolek.
[...] The fact that the Java Sea Shipwreck happened 800 years ago instead of 700 years ago is a big deal for archaeologists.
"This was a time when Chinese merchants became more active in maritime trade, more reliant upon oversea routes than on the overland Silk Road," says Niziolek. "The shipwreck occurred at a time of important transition."
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday May 19 2018, @12:40AM (1 child)
Apparently they already knew this was a time of transition to sea trade, so why is it such a big deal for them?
Besides, a warehouse full of fakes in China would surprise exactly no one. The old map on the wall said Jianning Fu, so that's what went on the pottery. It could be far newer than they think.
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by Arik on Saturday May 19 2018, @03:46AM
If it was 'late 13th century' that would mean the mongols under Genghiz had come for the Jin, and Genghiz' grandson had finally come for the Song as well most likely (that happens in 1279 - Kublai reigns until his death in 1294.)
IIRC a common view among historians is that the Song were quite focused on military uses for their new technology, and that only after the Yuan conquest is complete (or perhaps even later - under the Ming) that the Chinese really start *using* them in earnest for purposes of long range trading and exploration instead of mostly using them to transport troops and provisions around quickly.
Java sea isn't shockingly far, but it's definitely further than Vietnam (again iirc,) the best evidence for southern Song contacts outside of China is with Vietnam - they had a huge amount of contact and it's very well documented - but even just a little past Vietnam the evidence is much more sparse and allows for some debate.
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