Tek Sing
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The Tek Sing ( Chinese for True Star ) was a three-masted ocean - going junk from Xiamen in China from the 19th century . The ship became known through its sinking with more than 1,600 people and its valuable porcelain cargo, most of which was salvaged after the wreckage was found in 1999.
The ship
The wooden ship was approx. 55 meters long and 10 meters wide, had 5 decks, three masts with louvre sails , the highest of which measured approx. 35 m. It had the typical square junk prow with painted eyes and a high fort rear. It was armed with firearms and could carry loads of approximately 1,000 tons . The large upper deck was also equipped with pitched “deckhouses” and tents. As a special structural feature, the ship was surrounded by a wide border of 1 m width above the waterline, which allowed the seafarers to easily get on the ship from front to back and back.
The trip
On January 14, 1822, during the reign of the Qing Emperor Dao Guang (1821-1851), the Tek Sing ran heavily laden from Amoy , in Fujian Province , with destination Batavia . The route led through the Formosa Strait along the Vietnamese and Malay coasts through the end of the Strait of Malacca . It had around 1,800 people on board, 1,600 of whom were mainly emigrants who wanted to find a new home, family members or work in the sugar cane plantations on Java. The mass emigration shows that China was in an extremely tense economic, social and political situation at that time (see First Opium War ). The high number of people on board - real " passengers " with appropriate accommodation were only a few - is proven by sources, the more than 1,000-strong ship crews of large carracks and galleons confirm the possibility. During the crossing, the emigrants lived on board in sometimes catastrophic conditions due to the narrowness. In addition to its “human burden”, the junk carried an extremely valuable cargo made of porcelain from the 19th century, but also pieces from the 17th and 18th centuries, most of which were supposed to be handled in the Dutch port of destination, Batavia, in their separate holds in the hull. Furthermore, taking advantage of all free spaces, it was loaded with valuable types of tea (Souchong, Hyson, Pekoe) between and above the porcelain (to protect it). In addition came on top u. a. Raw silk, lacquer work, bamboo furniture, ink, writing paper, vermilion , tortoiseshell and mother-of-pearl , incense, sandalwood , frankincense , benzoin and myrrh , utensils. Finally, medicines were stowed away to protect them from damage and contamination by the seawater, including the rare baroos camphor oil, which was more expensive than silver, plus star anise , china root, dragon's blood, ginseng and musk . Rattan and bamboo bundles, since they can be exposed to seawater, were tied to the outside of the ship's hull. The ship was therefore totally overloaded in terms of its valuable, multi-million dollar cargo and the people on board.
For reasons that are not exactly known, the captain of the ship, whose name is passed down as Io Tauko, changed the original, longer, but traditional route through the Bangka Strait (Selat Bangka) between the islands of Bangka and Sumatra , and took a different one, shorter, further east through Gaspar Street (Selat Gaspar / Selat Gelasa). Maybe he wanted to gain time because of problems on board due to the overcrowding of his ship, maybe also out of fear of pirates . On the new route, the ship got into the sea area of the shoals known as Belvidere Reef , which she rammed at full speed on the evening of February 5th.
The downfall
The Tek Sing rolled to one side, stayed in this position for a while, straightened up again and then slid into deeper water (30 m) and finally sank there. The sea was covered with debris and survivors when two days later the British sailor Indiana, coming from Calcutta , passed the sinking site, which was initially thought to be a sandbar because of the debris and people in the sea . Because of the worsening weather, Captain James Pearl was only able to take on 190 passengers, who he brought while deviating from his original route to Pontiana on Borneo. Many of the survivors drowned in the sea, others were hurled against the rocks of Gaspar Island. According to contemporary reports from survivors and the Indiana crew , many mutilated bodies were spotted in the sea and on the island's beach. A smaller junk from Canton accompanying the Tek Sing continued the journey without participating in the rescue. Captain Pearl later received a medal of bravery from King Wilhelm I of the Netherlands .
This shipwreck, which was long forgotten and only came to light again when the wreck was found, is one of the greatest in peacetime. The sinking of the ferry Le Joola ( Senegal ) on September 26, 2002 and the Doña Paz ( Philippines ) on December 20, 1987 were more lossy. In what is probably the most famous shipwreck in history, the sinking of the Titanic , there were fewer deaths with 1,517 people.
Find and rescue
The wreck was rediscovered by the treasure hunter Mike Hatcher on May 12, 1999 , following indications in a hydrographic manual from 1848 ( Directions for sailing to the East Indies by James Horsburgh) . A million finds were recovered. Documentation of the finds, the hull of the ship and the salvage work in accordance with the rules of archeology did not take place. Hatcher, who “knew better than anyone that rare things sell better in a global antiques market,” ordered 600,000 pieces to be smashed and only 350,000 objects to be kept. These were auctioned off at a worldwide auction in 2000 by the art auction house Nagel in Stuttgart Central Station. According to the auction house, total revenue was $ 14.5 million. Nevertheless, Hatcher's salvage company Ocean Salvage Corporation made a loss and the investors in the salvage operation lost their stake. As announced at an extraordinary shareholder meeting in Adelaide in 2001 , expenses of $ 20 million were set against income of only $ 17 million. From an archaeological point of view, salvage operations such as that of the Tek Sing are strictly rejected, as sites and artefacts are destroyed undocumented for private profit interests, while the recovered finds are scattered through commercial exploitation and thus withdrawn from both research and the public. Chinese archaeologists in particular regard Hatcher's activities as a "disaster"; indirectly, they have led to China stepping up and professionalizing its activities to protect its cultural heritage.
literature
- Nigel Pickford: Legacy of the Tek Sing: China's Titanic, Its Legacy and Its Treasures . Weatherhill Publ., New York, 2000 (paperback); ISBN 1-85757-069-3
- Hugh Edwards, Regina Schneider: White gold from the blue depth. The raising of the "Tek Sing" porcelain treasure . Sierra Paperback, ISBN 3-89405-135-3
Web links
Remarks
- ^ Hatcher knew better than anyone else that in the world culture relics collection market, the rare things sell higher. Chen Lin, In: Exploration of the Nanhai No.1 - Mike Hatcher, the man who compelled China's underwater archeology to develop . China.org.cn, August 31, 2007
- ^ Frank Pope: Dragon Sea. A True Tale of Treasure, Archeology, and Greed off the Coast of Vietnam, Harcourt, Orlando u. a. 2007, p. 313f. In this context, the author suspects that the recovery costs at the expense of the investors were excessive, because a parallel recovery operation off the coast of Vietnam cost $ 14 million, although it was due to a much greater depth and the necessary use of saturation divers and scientific support by archaeologists was much more time-consuming than rescuing the Tek Sing freight: “Most treasure-hunting companies operate using the same formula. Find a shipwreck with a stirring story at a mainfest that mentions treasure, and then sell the dream to the shareholders. The treasure-hunters may or may not believe the dream; what is certain is that all the shareholders' money will be spent on the search, wether it is successful or not. ... Even if the project is a disaster according to the accountants, the treasure-hunter rarely loses out. "
- ↑ Paul F. Johston: treasure-hunting, in: (ed.) James P. Delgado: The British Museum Encyclopedia of Underwater and Maritime Archeology, The British Museum Press, London 1997, pp 424-425
- ↑ Chen Lin, as above.
Coordinates: 2 ° 24 ′ 54.3 " S , 107 ° 4 ′ 10.2" E