German shipwreck explorer donates cultural relics to museum

CHANGSHA: A collection of 38 cultural relics has been donated by a German shipwreck explorer to a museum in central China’s Hunan Province.

The collection, which was discovered in the Bakau shipwreck, included 15 pieces of Chinese porcelain from the Ming Dynasty (13681644), as well as 23 pottery and porcelain items made in SouthEast Asia, according to the Hunan Museum.

Tilman Walterfang, a German shipwreck explorer, set up the underwater archaelogical salvage company Seabed Explorations in 1996 in Germany.

The company is credited with discovering the Bakau shipwreck, an early 15thcentury Ming vessel of Chinese origin, near the island of Bakau in Karimata Strait, Indonesia, in early 1998, according to Walterfang.

Fang Zhaoyuan, a porcelain researcher working with the Hunan Museum, said the collection was not only a significant record of China’s maritime trade during the early period of the Ming Dynasty, but also showed the cultural exchange between China and SouthEast Asia during the 15th century. — Xinhua