HOI AN, VIETNAM — Treasure from a ship that sank off the coast of Vietnam 500 years ago will be auctioned on the Internet. The teak ship, believed to be from China or Indonesia, sank sometime between 1450 and 1550, with its hold laden with porcelain and ceramics as it tried to enter Hoi An, a town in central Vietnam. Half a millennium later, starting in October, thousands of items are slated to be sold online through eBay's Great Collections website (ebaygreatcollections.com) and also through an auction house in San Francisco for a sale expected to net tens of millions of dollars. In an arrangement with the Vietnamese government, 10 percent of the "one-of-a-kind" artifacts are being sent to more than 100 museums throughout Vietnam, while an undisclosed amount from auction sales will be shared with the Vietnamese government.
Rumors of priceless sunken antiques near Hoi An surfaced in 1993 when local fishermen discovered the wreck while trawling the ocean floor with nets, and then attempted to extract the long-lost treasure in bits and pieces using rakes and other instruments, 223 feet below the surface. The pieces quickly found their way onto the world's black market for antiques, while others turned up in the curio shops that line the merchant quarters of Hoi An.
In 1999, the Vietnamese government commissioned salvers who recovered more than 150,000 pieces. Because of the depths, six divers had to live in a special underwater chamber, working in 12-hour shifts in an operation that lasted nearly 70 days, eventually uncovering porcelain pieces and styles never seen before.
Because of persistent internal and external warfare, Vietnamese ceramics have not been preserved in large numbers. The findings are expected to revolutionize knowledge of fifteenth-century Asian trade. For more information see www.mercurycenter.com.