Couple Find 19th Century Shipwreck

Jakarta Globe, Feng Zengkun -Straits Times Indonesia, May 01, 2011

The Viscount Melbourne, a British cargo ship, was stranded on a coral reef
after being hit by a squall. The wreck was recently discovered by Australian
part-time marine archaeologists Hans and Roz Berekoven. (The Berekovens Photo)

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Singapore. A ship that sank more than 150 years ago in Borneo waters after visiting Singapore has been found by two Australians.

Part-time marine archaeologists Hans and Roz Berekoven - who are married to each other - said their find was unlikely to yield any treasures as the ship had been a British cargo vessel, but it could add to knowledge of trade then.

'No gold,' Mr Berekoven, 64, said in an interview in Singapore. 'Just cutlery and a few bottles of really well-aged wine.'

In 1842, the Viscount Melbourne sailed from India en route to China and docked in Singapore to pick up supplies and passengers. It left with more than 70 people on board.

Three days after it left Singapore, the vessel was hit by a squall. It was left stranded on a coral reef.

The ship had to be abandoned as the cotton bales it carried would expand when wet.

One survivor wrote in his diary that the bales would 'swell and inevitably blow up the ship'.

The crew and passengers, evacuated in boats, spent weeks at sea before reaching nearby Borneo. Their journey was fraught with dangers such as bad weather and encounters with pirates.

Britain even sent a second ship, the Royalist, to look for the survivors. The Viscount Melbourne was left on the reef since it carried nothing of value. It eventually sank.

Newspapers in the region reported on its loss at the time but interest faded and the wreck was abandoned to its fate.

Then in 1950, The Straits Times published a series of articles on the survivors' struggle to reach Borneo. The series, titled 'A perilous sea voyage', gave the Berekovens the key to finding the wreck.

The couple had seen vague references to the wreck and its survivors while researching another project (see sidebar).

An Internet search led to excerpts of The Straits Times articles, which in turn led them to the National Library in Singapore, where the full articles were kept.

'We spent five days in the archives working out the route the survivors took,' Mr Berekoven said. 'The diarist kept an incredibly detailed log.'

Tracing the route backwards, they were able to find the wreck within 25 minutes of dropping anchor. 'There was no cotton left of course,' Mrs Berekoven, 53, said. 'When we saw that the hull had burst outwards, we knew what had happened.'

That was in April last year. Since then, the Berekovens have revisited the wreck several more times, each time bringing up small artifacts such as spoons and bottles of preserved fruit.

The bad weather that had befallen the ship remains to this day, preventing more frequent visits, the couple said.

The depth of the wreck at 40m underwater and the limitations of their equipment mean they can spend only nine minutes at a time on the ship before they have to resurface.

'We're saving up for better equipment like scuba gear,' Mr Berekoven said.

Their salvage project is partially funded by Chinese Malaysian businessman Troy Yaw, whose father Yaw Teck Seng is one of Malaysia's 40 richest people.

The Berekovens said artifacts from the ship will go to a maritime museum about the region that the younger Mr Yaw intends to set up.

The couple's own goal is to make a documentary about the survivors.

Mrs Berekoven said: 'It'll make a great story. The ship was named after the Prime Minister of England then. It had a woman on board with a baby and a two-year-old boy, and what they went through in the open waters already reads like a movie script.'

The boy, George Mildmay Dare, also returned to Singapore and became a local celebrity in his time, Mr Berekoven added. Mr Dare was the first person to be buried in the old Bidadari cemetery.

The archaeologist said: 'The ship came here, it disappeared, and it was eventually 'found' again in the National Library here. Its story is part of local history.'

Reprinted courtesy of Straits Times Indonesia. To subscribe to Straits Times Indonesia and/or the Jakarta Globe call 2553 5055.

2,000-Year Old Greek Shipwreck Reveals Medical Secrets of the Ancient World

The Daily Galaxy, September 12, 2010

Twenty years ago, Archaeologists discovered a ship created In 130 BC from wood of walnut trees and bulging with a cargo hold of medicial pills and Syrian glassware, that sank off the coast of Tuscany Italy.

For the first time archaeobotanists have been able to examine and analyse the pills that were prepared by the physicians of ancient Greece. DNA analyses show that each millennia old tablet is a mixture of more than ten different plant extracts; from hibiscus to celery. Most of the medicines are still completely dry according to Robert Fleischer of the Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C.

“For the first time, we have physical evidence of what we have in writing from the ancient Greek physicians Dioscorides and Galen,” stated Alain Touwaide of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

Fleischer analysed DNA fragments in two of the pills and compared the sequences to the GenBank genetic database maintained by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. He was able to identify: carrot, radish, celery, wild onion, oak, cabbage, alfalfa and yarrow. He also found hibiscus extract that was probably imported from east Asia or the lands of present day India or Ethiopia.

“Most of these plants are known to have been used by the ancients to treat sick people,” says Fleischer. Yarrow staunched the flow of blood from wounds, and Pedanius Dioscorides, a physician and pharmacologist in Rome in the first century AD, described the carrot as a panacea for a number of problems. “They say that reptiles do not harm people who have taken it in advance; it also aids conception,” he wrote around 60 AD.

The concoctions also provided the archaeobotanists a few surprises. Preliminary analyses suggest they contain sunflower, a plant that is not thought to have existed in the Old World before Europeans discovered the Americas in the 1400s. If the finding is confirmed, botanists may need to revise the traditional history of the plant and its diffusion, says Touwaide – but it’s impossible for now to be sure that the sunflower in the pills isn’t simply from recent contamination.

Drugs described by Dioscorides and another Greek physician known as Galen of Pergamon have often been dismissed as ineffectual quackery. “Scholars and scientists have often dismissed the literature on such medicines, and expressed doubt about their possible efficacy, which they attributed only to the presence of opium,” says Touwaide. He hopes to resolve this debate by exploring whether the plant extracts in the pills are now known to treat illnesses effectively.

He also hopes to discover therian, a medicine described by Galen in the second century AD that contains more than 80 different plant extracts and document the exact measurements ancient doctors used to manufacture the pills. “Who knows, these ancient medicines could open new paths for pharmacological research,” says Touwaide.

The team presented their findings at the Fourth International Symposium on Biomolecular Archaeology in Copenhagen, Denmark.

RI undecided on underwater heritage convention

Dina Indrasafitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Thu, 06/03/2010 10:36 AM

Despite being rich in sunken treasure, Indonesia is undecided whether to ratify a world convention that protects underwater cultural heritage, a senior official said Wednesday at a workshop for officials and academics in Jakarta.

“Indonesia still needs to carefully weigh up the benefits and consequences of ratifying [the convention],” Hari Untoro Drajat, the Culture and Tourism Ministry’s director general for history and archaeology said.

He said ratifying the UNESCO convention on protection of the underwater cultural heritage needed careful preparation, including adequate legislation, human resources, infrastructure and funding.

The convention was adopted by UNESCO in 2001, and has been ratified by 31 countries as of May this year. Cambodia is the only signatory in Asia.

According to Masanori Nagaoka, the head of culture unit of UNESCO office in Jakarta, the convention carries four main principles: The obligation to preserve underwater cultural heritage, in situ preservation preferred, no commercial exploitation, and training and information sharing.

Arief Rachman from the Indonesian National Commission for UNESCO said the third principle has been the most challenging for Indonesia.

Last month, the government, through the National Committee of Excavation and Utilization of Precious Artifacts from Sunken Ships, conducted an auction of around 271,000 artifacts, including ceramics from China’s Zheijang province and a gold sword from the Middle East, collected from a ship presumed to have sunk around 900 years ago in waters off Cirebon, West Java.

The auction was a flop with no bidders registering, but the government said it would maintain its effort to sell the artifacts, which had been excavated by a private company five years ago.

Many, ranging from royalty to academics and history enthusiasts, opposed to the auction, but the committee defended it, saying a number of unique items had been conserved.

Supratikno Rahardjo from the University of Indonesia said there were risks that the government should take if it chooses to ratify the convention.

The consequences of what he called “option two” — ratifying the convention as soon as possible as opposed to the first option of delaying it up to a certain period — include the government paying back investors the costs of obtaining permits for recovering sunken treasures.

“If it were up to us, we would like the government to take option two,” he said.

Chairijah, the director for international law at the Justice and Human Rights Ministry, said Indonesia could ratify the convention with a law or a Presidential Regulation.

Regardless of whether Indonesia chooses to ratify the convention or not, the country should stop referring to the heritage as “treasures” to be hunted and traded in, the workshop concluded.

Thousands of Ming artifacts secured from shipwreck in Java Sea

Erwida Maulia, The Jakarta Post, Subang, West Java | Wed, 05/05/2010 10:18 PM

Over 12,400 items of Chinese ceramics believed to originate from the Ming dynasty era have been secured from a ship wreck in Belanakan waters in Subang, West Java.

The ceramics have been gathered during the past month of diving operation around and into the wreck of 50 m x 20 m ship that lies 58 meters under the surface of Java Sea.

White ceramic plates, bowls and vases with blue motives, mostly floral, construct most found items; 40 percent of which are still in good condition.

"It is predicted to be a cargo ship sunken somewhere in 1,600s... Archaeologists believe, from the blue motives of the white ceramics, that they originate from the Ming dynasty," Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry's director general for surveillance and control, Aji Sularso, said aboard a patrol ship on Wednesday after surveying the lifting of the ceramics 48 miles off the coast of Belanakan.

"Given the large size of the cargo, we predict that we need to dive for a year to secure all of its precious loads, which may amount to 1 million pieces; larger than the number of items secured from the shipwreck in Cirebon."

Aji said he expected to find gold bars among the loads so as to cover the survey and lifting costs of the artifacts, predicted to exceed US$10 million, the total costs needed to secure loads of the Cirebon shipwreck offered in a bid also on Wednesday in Jakarta.

The presence of the shipwreck along with its loads in Belanakan waters was confirmed in a survey conducted between July and October last year, following some local fishermen's finding of ceramics in their fish nets.

The lifting of the artifacts, Aji said, began in early April, with 22 professional divers specially hired to secure the precious loads from the shipwreck and brought them to the surface.

The Indonesian government, through the national committee for shipwreck loads, is partnering with local private firm PT Comexindo to conduct the survey, as well as to secure and store the precious loads.

Related Article:

Java Sea shipwreck yields Ming bounty

Treasure Auction Flops

Jakarta Globe, Ulma Haryanto, May 05, 2010

National treasures: In this photo taken Tuesday, a security guard stands near wares salvaged from a wooden Chinese ship that sank more than 1,000 years ago in the Java Sea, on display in Pamulang, on the outskirts of Jakarta. A long awaited auction of the ancient treasures opened in the capital on Wednesday, but closed abruptly as there were no registered bidders. The auction, announced barely a week ago, had been expected to fetch at least $80 million for a collection of more than 270,000 pieces of valuable ceramic pots, jewelry and crystals dating back to the 10th century. JP - AP/Achmad Ibrahim

Going once, going twice, fail.

The highly anticipated — at least locally — auction of a 10th-century treasure trove valued at around $80 million flopped on Wednesday when not a single bidder bothered to show up.

Embarrassingly for local officials, the auctioneer was forced to abandon the auction at the Ministry of Fisheries in Central Jakarta just five minutes after it opened.

Adi Agung Tirtamarta, chief executive officer of PT Paradigma Putra Sejathera, the local partner of Belgian treasurer hunter Luc Heyman, said the failure indicated that it was clearly time for the government to revise its regulation requiring potential bidders to first pay a hefty deposit of $16 million, or 20 percent of the reserve price of $80 million.

Adi said the deposit requirement was unique to Indonesia.

The gems, crystal ware, gold and porcelain were salvaged from an unidentified wreck off Cirebon, West Java, in 2004.

A second auction is likely.

A 10th Century treasure from the wreck found off Cirebon, Java

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Police chase shipwreck treasure hunter

Government Investigating Foreign 'Treasure Hunter' After New Discovery

Police chase shipwreck treasure hunter

Bagus BT Saragih, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Fri, 04/30/2010 9:48 AM

Facing jail ... Queensland treasure hunter Mike Hatcher. (brisbanetimes)

Authorities are hunting Michael Hatcher, a foreign shipwreck treasure hunter believed to be operating in Indonesian waters.

Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Fadel Muhammad said Thursday he dispatched a joint investigation team to pursue Hatcher.

“I have received many reports about [Hatcher] and his illegal activities. I told my men to monitor Hatcher’s movements at sea,” Fadel told The Jakarta Post.

National Police chief detective Comr. Gen. Ito Sumardi confirmed a team of water police had been assigned to arrest Hatcher.

“We have identified his boat. We are now monitoring his activities,” Ito said.

Fadel said he did not know Hatcher very well. “But since I began serving as a minister in 2009, [Hatcher’s] name has been mentioned as a famous treasure hunter,” the Golkar politician said.

Hatcher has been widely known as a shipwreck treasure hunter since the 1980s.

Hatcher is believed to be an Australian national, but reports say he may hold both British and Australian passports.

His main area of operations is reportedly the Malacca Strait between Sumatra and Malaysia, Bangka-Belitung, Java, and in the South China Sea near Thailand.

According to Endro Soebekti Sadjiman, the coordinator of NGOs grouped in the National Assets Rescue Consortium, Hatcher’s latest operation was in Blanakan waters, Subang regency, West Java.

Endro said he believed Hatcher was after porcelain from the Ming dynasty.

“A porcelain plate or bowl from that era could fetch US$20,000. If there are thousands down there, just imagine the losses the state may suffer [if they’re stolen],” he said.

According to the consortium, Hatcher went to Blanakan following his recent discovery of the wreck of a Dutch ship named De Geldermalsen in East Bintan, Riau Islands, from which he recovered Chinese porcelain that was sold at auction in Amsterdam for $20 million.

“There are many other ‘Hatchers’,” Endro claimed.

Head of the National Committee of Excavation and Utilization of Valuable Objects from Sunken Ships at the ministry, Aji Sularso, said the joint team of investigators began hunting Hatcher two months ago.

The team comprises officers from the water police, Navy, police, and civil servant investigators from the Culture and Tourism Ministry.

“Hatcher is smart. He moves quickly and unpredictably if he thinks we’re on to him,” Aji told the Post.

The 2002 Cultural and Heritage Law stipulates that illegal treasure hunting is punishable by up to five years in prison and Rp 50 million ($5,500) in fine.

“Hatcher can also be charged under the Criminal Code on theft of state assets,” Aji said.

Aji said the government had identified 493 shipwreck sites across Indonesia, many of which have been looted.

“Most of the ships were Dutch, Chinese, and Portuguese which sank in the 1600s,” he said.

According to Aji, there are currently six companies permitted to salvage underwater treasure.

The law states that half of the haul’s proceeds belong to the state.

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Government Investigating Foreign 'Treasure Hunter' After New Discovery

Government Investigating Foreign 'Treasure Hunter' After New Discovery

Jakarta Globe, Markus Junianto Sihaloho, April 28, 2010

A piece of porcelain from the Tek Sing shipwreck dating from 1822. Michael Hatcher, who discovered the historically important wreck, is again drawing the attention of government officials after a new discovery. (Photo courtesy of Artancient.com)

The government said on Wednesday that it had launched an investigation into the activities of alleged treasure hunter Michael Hatcher, who has a lengthy history with Indonesia and is believed to again be operating on a new discovery.

Aji Sularso, an official with the National Committee for Salvage and Utilization of Valuable Objects from Sunken Ships (Pannas BMKT), said it had established a joint investigation team comprising related government institutions.

“We are investigating the case,” Aji said.

Aji was responding to complaints by the Consortium for Rescuing National Assets (KPAB), which alleged the ministry had not responded to its report regarding Hatcher, who may hold both British and Australian passports.

Speaking during a news conference in Jakarta, Endro Soebekti Sadjiman, a member of the consortium of nongovernmental organizations, said they believed Hatcher and his associates had been operating in Indonesia since 1986 and had surfaced in a “secret mission in Blanakan waters” near Pamanukan, Subang, West Java.

“The government must arrest him,” Endro said.

Daniel Nafis from Inside Indonesia, another member of the coalition, said Hatcher began operating in Indonesia salvaging the Vec De Geldermalsen shipwreck in East Bintan waters, Riau Islands province.

Items from the ship reaped $15 million during auction at Christie’s Amsterdam, he said.

It was this incident that led the government to establish Pannas BMKT to supervise any further salvage missions, Daniel said.

In 1999, Hatcher allegedly discovered the Tek Sing shipwreck near South Sumtra waters. According to some Internet accounts, the vessel is described as the “Titanic of the East,” given the loss of life associated with the sinking in 1822.

It has been described as one of the most important antique shipwrecks ever discovered.

Along with local company PT. Pratama Cakra Dirga, Hatcher was able to salvage Rp 500 billion ($55 million) worth of treasure, mainly Chinese porcelain, he said.

“The government found out about this illegal operation only after Australian customs officials contacted Indonesian officials,” Nafis said. “They said 43 containers full of porcelain were ready to leave for Germany,” Nafis said.

He said Hatcher had been working with officials from local company PT. Comexindo Usaha Mandiri in Blanakan since 2008.

Nafis said they had already confirmed that the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) had not issued authorization for Hatcher to be operating in the area.

Pannas BMKT, meanwhile, said it had issued permit for Comexindo, but Nafis said it was issued on August 11, 2009, which he alleged meant activities prior to 2009 were illegal.

“We have a copy of a letter from the local Navy commander that Hatcher was allegedly involved in the illegal salvage by Commexindo,” Nafis said.

“It’s clearly legal violation. We had submitted this complaint to the Marine and Fishery Ministry since April 14, but until now the government do nothing,” he said referring to the complaint that Pannas BMKT now said it was acting on.

Nafis said the activity violated Article 27 of Law No. 5/2002 on Cultural and Heritage Objects, which carries a maximum jail term of five years in prison and or a fine of Rp 50 million.

The latest find in Blanakan is also understood to be a shipwreck, though no other information was available.

Treasure hunter Michael Hatcher is said to be operating on a new discovery in Subang, West Java.

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