In a nondescript warehouse in Jakarta, treasure-hunter Luc Heymans dips into plastic boxes and pulls out jewels and ornaments that lay hidden at the bottom of the Java Sea for 1,000 years.
An ornately sculpted mirror of polished bronze is one masterpiece among the 250,000 artefacts recovered over the last 18 months from a boat that sank off Indonesia in the 10th century.
On a small mould is written the word "Allah" in beautiful Arabic script, on top of a lid sits a delicately chiseled doe.
Tiny perfume flasks accompany jars made of baked clay, while slender-necked vases fill the shelves of the hangar along with brightly colored glassware from the Fatimides dynasty that once ruled ancient Egypt.
A team of divers, among them three Australians, two Britons, three French, three Belgians and two Germans, excavated the vessel laden with rare ceramics which sank more than 1,000 years ago some 241km from Jakarta.
Their finds, including artefacts from China's Five Dynasties period from 907 to 960 and Egypt, are already causing a stir among archaeologists who say the cargo sheds new light on how ancient merchant routes were forged.
"It is a completely exceptional cargo," says Heymans, the Belgian chief of the excavation team.
"There is very little information about the Five Dynasties era and very few things in the museums. This wreck fills a hole," he said.
Close to 14,000 pearls and a profusion of precious stones were found, including some 4,000 rubies, 400 dark red sapphires, and more than 2,200 garnets.
"On the second last day of diving, I spotted some broken ceramics. Under 30 centimeters of vase, I uncovered the handle of a golden sabre," says Daniel Visnikar, the leading French diver.
It took more than 24,000 dives to recover all the treasure from the boat which rests 54m below the surface. Material recovered from the site has whetted the appetite of overseas experts.
"A 10th century wreck is very rare, there are only a few," says Jean-Paul Desroches, a curator at the Guimet Museum in Paris, after seeing photographs of the early hauls.
He says the wreck and its cargo offers clues to how traders using the Silk Road linking China to Europe and the Middle East, used alternative sea routes as China's merchants moved south because of invasions from the north.
The variety of loot pulled from the depths is hard to imagine: dishes adorned with dragons and birds; porcelain with finely carved edges; teapots decorated with lotus flowers; and celadon plates with their glaze intact.
"These porcelains come from a very special kiln, an imperial kiln, perhaps from the province of Hebei in the north of China," suggests Peter Schwarz, a German ceramics specialist.
Heymans insisted the treasure -- the subject of controversy when the divers were chased from their barge in the open sea by the Indonesian navy last November -- was stored in a comprehensive and transparent manner.
"Every piece is indexed and we know which part of the boat it comes from. Every week we sent [the Indonesian authorities] a DVD with digital photographs of all the pieces," he says.
Heymans says another group of treasure hunters also tried to move in on the swag.
Cosmix, Heymans' Dubai-based corporation, was the force behind the 5 million euro (US$6.05 million) operation, which was funded by private investors in Europe.
The divers say the treasures might be bought by a foreign museum or are expected to be shown between next year and 2007 in an auction. Indonesia will receive 50 percent of proceeds from the sale of the treasures.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not