[Kabar-indonesia] Treasure hunter seeks more shipwreck riches in Indonesia and Vietnam

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

Treasure hunter seeks more shipwreck riches in Asia

SINGAPORE, Aug 3 (Reuters) - In Tilman Walterfang's eyes, the seabed of 
Southeast Asian waters is a bonanza. 

After discovering three treasure-laden shipwrecks in Indonesian waters 
between 
1997 and 1998, including the famous Tang Treasure that was sold to Singapore 
in 2004 for $32 million, the German treasure hunter is returning to the region 
for more. 

He believes there are more resting on seabeds across Southeast Asia, 
especially 
in the Strait of Malacca, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes and 
dubbed by some as a graveyard of ships for its treacherous reefs. 

"The Malacca Strait is full of rocks, reefs and small islands. Nobody knows 
exactly how many shipwrecks are there, but we would find out," the 49-year-old 
former engineer told Reuters in a recent interview. 

He is working with investors on a $50 million plan to salvage wrecks in 
Indonesia 
and Vietnam under national licences akin to production-sharing contacts for 
oil. 

The plan also calls for the construction of museums and archaeological 
conservation centres in Vietnam and Bali.      
  
The potential of more discoveries in the Strait of Malacca has lured many 
treasure hunters. Walterfang is one of them, and perhaps the most successful, so 
far. 

His latest find, in 1998, was a blockbuster. It was the wreck of an Arab ship 
laden with more than 60,000 ceramic pieces and gold and silver artefacts from 
China's Tang dynasty (618-907), possibly bound for a grand wedding in Arabia. 

SHIP GRAVEYARD 

Besides Walterfang's finds, other notable discoveries include a Dutch warship 
that sank off Malaysia over 400 years ago and salvaged in 1995. Experts 
recovered a bronze cannon from the Nassau, which sank after a battle with 
Portuguese warships. 

The British merchant ship Diana, which sank off Malacca in 1817, was 
discovered in 1993, yielding Chinese plates, bowls, candlesticks and other artefacts 
that fetched 2.2 million pounds ($4.1 million) at an Amsterdam auction two 
years later. 

John Miksic, Southeast Asian history expert at the National University of 
Singapore, said there could be more breathtaking finds ahead after the Tang 
Treasure. 

A ship of Admiral Zheng He's "Treasure" fleet in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) 
would make a sensational find. Zheng led seven armadas through Southeast Asia 
and beyond to spread Chinese influence from 1405 to 1433. 

Red-and-white porcelains from the period would be extremely precious, Miksic 
said. A red-and-white jar from the early Ming era was recently sold at auction 
for $10 million, Miksic added. 

Walterfang said Indonesian fishermen had been a key source of information and 
would continue to be. He says he keeps good relations with them through an 
Indonesian in-law. 

He was bitten by the treasure bug after fishermen showed him samples from 
shipwrecks on one of his diving trips in the 1990s, spurring him to quit his job 
at a German cement company. 

Fishermen in parts of Indonesia, such as East Sulawesi, dive in shallow 
waters without oxygen tanks in search of seafood, and occasionally stumble on the 
odd treasure, he said. 

Their ceramic samples led to his finds in 1997 of a 10th-century vessel, 
known as the Intan Wreck, in the Java Sea and a 15th-century ship, the 
Maranei/Bakau Wreck, near Belitung island, off southeastern Sumatra, the next year. Soon 
after, he found the Tang treasure near Buton island off southeast Sulawesi. 

Intan yielded thousands of Chinese ceramics, Indonesian gold jewellery, 
bronze artefacts and Arabian glassware, while Maranei/Bakau held a mixed cargo from 
the Ming dynasty. 

"All the ships found in Indonesian waters were representing actually the time 
capsules of those periods," said Walterfang, who is married with five 
children in New Zealand. 

'TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE' 

Walterfang's slides of the Tang Treasure showed glittering gold cups and 
plates, a Chinese-inscripted bronze mirror, white glazed stoneware and a tall 
green vase with a dragon lid. 

Some initially questioned the value of the finds as many were corroded and 
covered by limestone or coral, he said. "The scientific and academic community 
just didn't know how to handle it because it was just too good to be true that 
there was such a cargo from the Tang dynasty." 

Walterfang shrugged off advice that the artefacts be auctioned immediately, 
choosing to ship all the cargo to New Zealand for conservation, in a costly, 
six-year process. "I decided to go to New Zealand, far away from the media, far 
away from the world and tourists, to conserve it first." 

Specialists restored artefacts with chemicals injected 
millimetre-by-millimetre under microscopes, he said. They spent four years and $350,000 to conserve 
one silver flask alone. 

The Maranei/Bakau Wreck is still under conservation in New Zealand and will 
end up in a future Bali maritime museum, he said. The Intan Wreck has been 
handed back to Indonesia as part of compensation for the Tang Treasure, which will 
be exhibited soon at the Hua Song Museum in Singapore. 

Walterfang said he also gave Jakarta $2.5 million plus a deal to help 
conserve some of the existing finds and cover the costs of sending four Indonesians 
for conservation training abroad. 

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Nonis) 
     
------------------------------------------
Joyo Indonesia News Service
------------------------------------------