Legend Heading Legend HeadingCharting Forgotten Places
← All case files
Shipwreck · Salvaged (museum)

The Belitung Wreck

Sank ~830 AD · found 1998, Java Sea, off Belitung Island, Indonesia
RECOVERED
Evidence status: Historical tradition. no documented source (historical tradition); legal status unknown (manual verification recommended). This account is presented as historical tradition, not verified fact. Manual verification recommended. Repository evidence: 0 sources · 0 timeline events · 0 media items · legal unknown · view on the Map Evidence on file: historical tradition

The Belitung Wreck: still unexplained.

The 'Tang Treasure', 60,000+ pieces, the largest Tang hoard ever found

The law of this ground: Recovered cargo held by Singapore's Asian Civilisations Museum; the salvage remains debated.
The subject
developing the photograph…
The manifest
The 'Tang Treasure', 60,000+ pieces, the largest Tang hoard ever found
The account

Sea-cucumber divers off a Sumatran island in 1998 found an Arab dhow on the seabed, packed with the largest single haul of Tang-dynasty treasure ever raised, sixty thousand pieces of Changsha ceramics, gold, and silver, ninth-century Chinese wares bound for the Middle East. One wreck that proved the Maritime Silk Road in a single cargo. The hoard now fills a museum in Singapore.

Leads, where the trail points now
  • An Arab dhow that sank off Belitung Island, Indonesia, around 830 AD was found by sea-cucumber divers in 1998, holding some 60,000 Tang dynasty ceramics and gold, the best proof of early Indian Ocean trade.
  • The cargo was commercially salvaged and sold to Singapore, which set off a lasting fight over treasure salvage versus archaeology.
  • The lead is that the Java Sea holds many more Tang and Song trade wrecks, several already looted.
What the record holds

What remains open

  • No period map of the site has surfaced.
  • No contemporary press coverage has been found.
What we know, and what we don't
Established

No documentary claim is yet established. The account rests on tradition.

Still open
  • No period map of the site has surfaced.
  • No contemporary press coverage has been found.
The evidence room

No documentary or visual exhibits have been located yet. The trail below and the open leads are where this dossier grows next — every exhibit that enters here carries a source.

Where the trail points now
  • An Arab dhow that sank off Belitung Island, Indonesia, around 830 AD was found by sea-cucumber divers in 1998, holding some 60,000 Tang dynasty ceramics and gold, the best proof of early Indian Ocean trade.
  • The cargo was commercially salvaged and sold to Singapore, which set off a lasting fight over treasure salvage versus archaeology.
  • The lead is that the Java Sea holds many more Tang and Song trade wrecks, several already looted.
  • Search Library of Congress + DPLA (IIIF) for period cartography of the site.
  • Run Chronicling America for dated newspaper mentions.
  • Query NARA for archival records tied to the site.

Have a source, a map, or a clipping? Add a lead and it enters the record with its citation.

Start the hunt here
The first leads, so no one walks in cold.
Sources and the record
Related case files

The full hunt kit

Starting brief, what's known and disputed, evidence timeline, source list, map card, coordinate-confidence and legal-access summaries, and a field checklist, free with a Fellowship account.

Latest Word From the Newswire

Context, not proof. The dossier's own sources remain the evidence record.

Checking the wire…

Chart position -2.550°, 107.750° (approx.) View on the Map