It was strikingly sunny in early January 2024 when the CO-OP cohort visited the Plai Bat II site in Buriram Province, Thailand. The site lies atop a hill in the Prakhon Chai region, a perfect location for those who seek a connection to the past. Considering dozens of articles in the media urging the return of sacred statues looted from the Prakhon Chai region,1 which are spread across several museums in the USA and Europe,2 this visit was not meant to be surprising. Still, the reality of thinking about the ancient temple, built during the early 10th century CE and then brutally vandalised in the 1960s for treasure hunting, was heartbreaking. It was the same feeling when I conducted a reconnaissance dive into an underwater heritage site off the coast of the Northern Natuna Sea in 2017 and found the site was heavily blasted. The 12th – 13th century CE Song Dynasty ceramics were scattered in sherds and had formed a concave hole measuring approximately 10×20 m2 in width. Three bored holes on the massive hard coral, usually a strong indication of human intervention, were spotted in the middle of the underwater crater. The site was disturbingly exploited for treasure hunting. Unlike the pieces of the so-called “Prakhon Chai hoard”, which are still known and celebrated, no clear traces of the Song Dynasty ceramics looted from the Natuna have been identified.
In the circulation and trade of antique ‘objects’, heritage preservation issues are often overshadowed by economic interest and influenced by national and regional political dynamics. The difference between illicitly excavated and traded sacred artefacts and illegally retrieved underwater ancient ceramics entering the global market is negligible. Exploiting locals by overriding poverty and local economic needs, a poor understanding of heritage significance, uncontrolled local antique shops, and lenient national law enforcement are commonly known challenges. These issues are further compounded by the lack, or even the absence, of regional mechanisms for carefully examining the traceability of historic objects across borders. Not to mention the commitment of overseas museums or galleries to articulate the provenance of their collections, which has been hitherto lacking.
The sentiments of intangible value may vary between sacred objects revered religiously by communities and traded common goods retrieved from submerged water. Sacred objects often hold an exceptional sense of significance for particular groups, cultures, and places, and they embody the religious and spiritual values preserved by the people who hold them. The Prakhon Chai bronzes are an excellent example. Despite these hoards having experienced extensive looting from Plai Bat II temple, the spiritual value preserved by the people who hold them remains strong. These objects are paths of an awareness towards local identity.
On the other hand, two perspectives float in the community consciousness when it comes to submerged material culture. First, we often exclude shipwrecks or foreign production trade goods from the contemporary context and local epistemology of their find spot. In this case, we fail to acknowledge that every object has a biography, starting from the manufacturing centre, their trade, deposition location, and continuing until the present. Excluding war shipwrecks or state-owned ships, most shipwreck cargoes were produced to be marketed or moved from their original point of production to a particular destination, whether as commodities, merchandise, offerings or personal belongings of people who moved from place to place.3 Second, we might conceptualise submerged shipwrecks and their cargo as ‘shared heritage’ in which all countries or communities involved seemingly have equal rights to manage and claim heritage.
Rather than ascribing objects to a single cultural group or interpretation, these views lead to thought-provoking identity and ownership discourses that influence heritage-making. Significantly, plural meanings embedded within the same objects situate underwater cultural heritage (UCH) as contested political and economic entities. The isolation of objects from their present existence and local understandings of it may dilute the intrinsic value of heritage, compromising marginal benefits from its broader philosophical and sociological concerns about UCH preservation. In the name of preservation, meaning in objects should be interpreted and delivered to all levels of society, ensuring their inherent significance is understood as a past entity, as a source of knowledge, and as a subject of inheritance for future generations. When meanings are unclear or diverge, the commodifying of UCH based on the principle of ‘not our culture nor history’ becomes a vulnerable phase of objects’ afterlives.4 Treating them as commodities threatens the integrity of shipwrecks and their cargoes as archaeological data and places questions upon their ethical status. Even more, it proves challenging to manage the dispersal and interpretation of collections.
Interesting points might follow, such as the transformation of the dispersed object as a result of legalised commercial salvage when they move across borders. New meanings and functions are attached and adapted based on the cultural and political narratives constructed by the new host country. These transformations might even raise questions regarding ownership that surpasses the site of production and underwater find-spot. An illustrative case is the Belitung cargo. After retrieval from the sea-floor the objects were transferred for sale to Singapore by the company that held a license to salvage from the Indonesian government. Through the museum, the Singaporean government designated a final resting place for the objects to substantiate the narrative of a maritime state. Does this circumstance diminish or erase Indonesia’s obligations and entitlements as the custodian of the artifacts and convey title upon Singapore as the new owner? In the context of legality and contemporary trans-national boundaries, the answer will likely be ‘yes’. In this case the objects might only be considered as traded materials where Indonesia and Singapore take the respective roles as vendor and purchaser. However, it is not as simple as this. The acquisition of the Belitung cargoes does not necessarily transfer the intangible and historical values with the artefacts.
Further consideration is required of Southeast Asian’s ‘shared heritage’ in relation to the afterlife of UCH. Shared heritage was introduced as an approach to address cultural connections among countries or people that have arisen from their colonial histories.5 Conserving elements from the colonial period as a means of preserving shared heritage aims to negotiate any counterpoints, contestations, resistance, and conflict that may arise, as well as promote connections. Therefore, commercialised UCH does not currently retain a transnational ‘shared heritage’ of both the vendor and the purchaser unless the new owner shares historical connectivity with the objects. In the case of the Belitung shipwreck in Singapore, it is difficult to fully use the term ‘shared heritage,’ judging from the origin of this term and the commercial background of this collection. However, if we look at the term heritage as something that is also inherited in the future and the contemporary context of the objects as part of their biography, this term may intersect with the collections. UCH are collections of objects that change meaning across boundaries and have a place in broader geopolitical developments. If UCH is delineated as ‘shared heritage’, do countries or communities with historical connections to salvage UCH have equal positions to manage? Maybe we can consider the concept of ‘shared responsibility to manage’ as fostering a mutual responsibility and wider access to audiences for heritage appreciation. Do certain claimants to ‘shared heritage’ have rights to the objects which might overwrite the purchaser or like-owner? This question opens the door for contestation of commercially salvaged UCH. For example, contested seas in the South China Sea along with their shipwrecks and cargoes are now political agents in historical claims, that question long established maritime boundaries.
When considering the uncertain status of commercially salvaged UCH it is useful to borrow a phrase from Maarten Jacobs et.al. (2023): “heritage claims are driven by present concerns, are future-oriented, and are backward-looking.”6 Heritage is not only about objects, but also about value, power, and people. UCH preservation and management will continue to transcend time and challenge ownership discourse.
- Benjamin Sutton, “Officials from three countries have called on Denver Art Museum to return eight artefacts in its collection,” The Art Newspaper, 16 August 2023. <https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/08/16/denver-art-museum-cambodia-thailand-vietnam-restitution-emma-bunker. Accessed 3 May 2024.> ↩︎
- Dynamite Doug Podcast by Project Brazen, “Thai Antiquities,” The Loot Museum, 2023. <https://thelootmuseum.com/thai-antiquities/. Accessed 3 May 2024.> ↩︎
- Michael Flecker, “Miscellaneous Artefacts: Identifications and Implications,” in The Belitung Wreck: Sunken Treasures from Tang China (Seabed Explorations New Zealand Ltd., 2004), pp. 656-705. <https://www.iseas.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/22_flecker_misc_kat_656to705.pdf> ↩︎
- Natali Pearson, “Not our history, not our heritage: new perspectives on WWII ships in Indonesia,” Paper presented at the Australian National Maritime Museum: Archaeology of War conference, Sydney, 22-23 June 2018. <https://www.academia.edu/36113169/Not_our_history_not_our_heritage_new_perspectives_on_WWII_ships_in_Indonesia> ↩︎
- Küver, J. “The Politics of Shared Heritage: Contested Histories and Participatory Memory Work in the Post-Colonial Urban Landscape,” In 50 Years World Heritage Convention: Shared Responsibility – Conflict & Reconciliation, Albert, MT., Bernecker, R., Cave, C., Prodan, A.C., Ripp, M. (eds), pp. 139-50 (Springer, Cham, 2022). <https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05660-4_11.> ↩︎
- Jacobs, M., Huisman, F., de Wit, M., & van Beek, R., “Heritage contestation in matterscape, mindscape, and powerscape,” Landscape Research 48(8): 1041–53. <https://doi.org/10.1080/01426397.2023.2208058> ↩︎