Northern Vietnam Anchor
Documentation & Assessment, Vietnam
Hanoi Wooden Anchors
Investigators -- Jun Kimura, M.A., Maritime Archaeology Program, Flinders University; Randall Sasaki, M.A., INA Research Associate
In late May and early June 2008, an international team from the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA), the Maritime Archaeology Program at Flinders University, and the Historical Association in Vietnam conducted an intensive survey in northern Vietnam with the generous support of the RPM Nautical Foundation. The purpose of the survey was to record two wooden anchors that had been recovered by a local fisherman from the Red River and to identify the significance and archaeological potential of a historic battle site on the Bach Dang River, near Halong Bay, where an invading Chinese and Mongol naval force sent by Kublai Khan had been trapped and destroyed by the Vietnamese in 1288.
The two large wooden anchors are currently stored in a private house in Hanoi. The owner purchased them from fishermen who had snagged them in the Song Hong, or Red River. The National History Museum of Hanoi and History Associates, prior to the anchors becoming part of the museum’s collections, wanted to know if these anchors were associated with the 13th-century Mongol invasion of Vietnam. The Vietnamese regard the battle of 1288 as a particularly historically and culturally significant victory in which warrior prince and General Tran Hung Dao snared the Mongol fleet in a narrow part of the river, trapping them with huge wooden stakes that his troops and local villagers had set into the river bed at low tide. When the Mongols entered the trap at high tide, the Vietnamese attacked, and held the Mongol fleet at bay until the tide fell. Unable to retreat, the Mongol fleet was then destroyed by fire rafts while the invaders who waded ashore were killed.
Some of the stakes were exposed by river bank construction of a fish pond in the 1950s. In the 1980s, the Vietnam Institute of Archaeology excavated and recorded hundreds of the wooden stakes that remain in situ on the Bach Dang’s now silted-in foreshore. Thousands more, as well as the remains of the fleet, should likely be close by. The INA/Flinders/History Associates team visited the site, pinpointed where additional remains should lie with the help of local villagers, and also documented a series of temples dedicated to Tran Hung Dao and his victory. The Bach Dang 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 Kublai Khan’s earlier, and more famous naval defeat in Japan in 1282. The team plans to return to Vietnam in 2009 to work with the Vietnamese to record the battle site, conduct a survey, and begin test excavations to find the Khan’s lost ships.
In Hanoi, the team documented stakes from Bach Dang that are now in museum collections and then turned their attention to the anchors. A detailed program of photographic documentation, offset measurements, and taking wood and fiber lashing samples was followed by laboratory analysis and drafting plans of these intact and rare wooden anchors. It is now clear that they do not date to the 13th century, but instead may be from the 16th to 18th centuries. Research continues to determine their exact date.
Additional Resources
Two wooden anchors were recovered from the Red River (Hong River), Hanoi. Photo: Vu The Long, James Delgado