Experts identifying shipwreck on Hội An beach

A security guard stands near a shipwreck on the beach of Cẩm An ward in Hội An City. Experts from Quảng Nam Museum have been identifying the origin of the ship. Photo courtesy of Lê Quốc Việt

HỘI AN — Experts from Quảng Nam provincial museum have been identifying the origin of a shipwreck which emerged on the beach of Cẩm Nam ward in the coast of An Bàng Beach from December 26.

Director of the provincial department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Nguyễn Thanh Hồng said a group of experts and researchers began a field assessment to collect information on the shipwreck before hoisting it for further examination.

He said high tides and downpours have prevented experts from working at the site and more time is needed to raise and possibly relocate it.

A report from Hội An City’s cultural heritage management centre unveiled that part of the wooden structure of the ship was discovered by local residents in Thịnh Mỹ living quarter of Cẩm An  ward, and it was roughly measured at 15m long and 3m wide.

The centre said some ancient ceramic fragments (believed between 17-18th century) were found in the area earlier, and the ship was roughly in the shape of merchant ships of Hội An people from previous centuries.

Local residents said the location of the ship had been a garden area, but erosion and rising sea level have encroached on the residential land in the coastal area.

Floods and serious landslides on the coast of Cửa Đại in Hội An could have moved the ship to the beach of Cẩm An.

Documents, images and artefacts salvaged from ancient ships wrecked off the coast of the central provinces of Quảng Nam, Quảng Ngãi, Bình Định and Bình Thuận are at museums in the region.

A private museum in Đà Nẵng (Đồng Đình Museum on Sơn Trà Mountain) also displays jars and ceramic artefacts dating from the 15th century after old objects were found on a ship wrecked off Chàm Islands of Hội An in the central Quảng Nam province.

A shipwreck in Chàm Islands was surveyed and salvaged from 1997 to 1999, with the remains of the ship measuring 29.4m long and 7.2m wide.

The latest original historical information of the shipwreck will be announced by experts and researchers from Quảng Nam provincial museum later, the director of the province’s department of Culture, Sports and Tourism said. VNS