INA Projects in Asia and Oceania
Battle of Bạch Đằng Survey, Vietnam
The Frigate Ertuğrul, Japan
North Vietnam Anchor Documentation and Assessment
The Kadakkarapally Boat, Kerali, India
Khubilai Khan 1281 Fleet Shipwreck Timber Study, Japan
For millennia, Asia’s waters and rivers have been the setting of trade, warfare, exploration and settlement. The South China Sea in particular has been compared by some scholars to the Mediterranean thanks to the rich interplay between the civilizations of China, Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia, the island cultures of the Philippines, Taiwan, and Indonesia, and their interconnections with East Asia, especially India. There is also a rich maritime tradition with seagoing rafts and canoes spreading populations and cultures across the Pacific.
INA first worked in Asia in the 1976 when Donald H. Keith joined the Korean team working on the Shinan Wreck, a Yuan Dynasty (13th century AD) vessel lost off Korea. INA research associate Jeremy Green joined the survey for Khubilai Khan’s lost fleet off Japan a few years later, but INA did not get further involved in Asian nautical archaeology until recently. Now, with three new research associates from Japan -- Kenzo Hayashida, Randall Sasaki and Jun Kimura -- INA has worked on projects in Japan, notably an analysis of timber remains from the wrecks lost off Takashima in 1281 when Kublai Khan lost a fleet of ships to Japanese defenders and a storm the Japanese call the "divine wind," or kamikaze, and a recent project with the remains of the Turkish frigate Ertuğrul, sunk by a typhoon in 1890 with the loss of over 500 lives. The envoy had just paid a goodwill visit to the emperor. INA is embarking on a new project in Vietnam, once more on the trail of fabled Mongol Emperor Khubilai Khan.
INA has also been involved, thanks to the work of research associate Ralph K. Pedersen, Ph.D., in the excavation and analysis of India’s first ancient hull to be discovered, the Kadakkarapally Boat.
