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Synopsis

This project, the first major collaboration between INA and Flinders University, has several important goals:

1) to reconstruct the historical battles on the Song Bạch Đằng (Bạch Đằng River);
2) to create a map of the maritime cultural landscape associated with the battle sites and commemorative and religious shrines and temples associated with the veneration of various figures involved in the Vietnamese victory in A.D. 1288, primarily the warrior prince Trần Hưng Đạo,
3) to document traditional Vietnamese craft still built in the region that may have figured in the battles, and
4) to locate and excavate warships  lost in the battle of 1288. The  Bạch Đằng area is a unique maritime cultural landscape that reflects seven hundred years of tradition associated with a major naval battle largely unknown in the west, unlike Khubilai Khan’s earlier, and more famous naval defeat in Japan six years earlier.

The site(s) being surveyed are in a tidal estuary close to the river’s mouth on Ha Long Bay near Haiphong. Three naval battles have been historically recorded at this area, including naval resistance to Chinese domination in AD 938, AD 981, and a climactic battle in 1288 against the Chinese Yuan Dynasty ruled by Khubilai Khan. As a tactic to aid their victory, Vietnamese forces secretly planted large wooden stakes at low tide, and as the tides fell, the Vietnamese destroyed the enemy fleet, which they had lured into the hidden trap. 

Historical accounts indicate that in 1288, a large number of Yuan/Mongol ships were sunk as a result of the battle, some by stakes, others possibly by fire. This battle has left a potentially rich archaeological record of largely undocumented Yuan/Mongol ships of the medieval period, as well as the battlefield, delineated by hundreds or more surviving wooden stakes that are both submerged and buried beneath silt. Since the 1950s, and increasingly in recent years, a number of stakes have been uncovered along the now silted river's edge and test excavations have been conducted by Vietnamese archaeologists.

An initial survey in 2008, sponsored by the RPM Nautical Foundation, delineated the battle area in general terms and defined the parameters for further field work and research. In 2009, with a support provided from National Geographic Society and the Waitt Institute for Discovery, a preliminary survey was performed by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University, the Maritime Archaeology Program at Flinders University (Australia), and the Institute of Archaeology, Hanoi to locate and map exposed wooden stakes, and to conduct interviews with local fisherman and farmers to locate areas with possible shipwrecks. In Hanoi and in Quang Yen, the team documented stakes from Bạch Đằng that are now in museum collections.

This survey showed that the project area was a larger estuary 700-1000 years ago, identified potential high probability zones areas for remote sensing surveys, and demonstrated the potential for GIS documentation of this unique Asian maritime battlefield, and for a significant future excavation of archaeologically significant vessels unrepresented in the existing archaeological record. Read the '09 report in the 2009 Edition of The INA Annual (pp. 14-24) The team is currently planning for a return to the field in 2010.

Links

Travel Vietnam
Three Victories on the Bạch Đằng River
Hero and Deity: Tran Hung Dao and the Resurgence of Popular Religion in Vietnam (Mekong Press) (Paperback)