A 9TH-CENTURY SEWN-PLANK SHIP: PUZZLES, PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS IN ARCHAEOLOGY, DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION

摘要

In the late 1990s a unique shipwreck was discovered in Indonesian waters off Belitung Island (Figure 1). Though found in Southeast Asia, the ship, labeled the 'Belitung wreck', was clearly not indigenous to that region, but displayed structural and fastening configurations and materials characteristic of the western Indian Ocean - that is, sewn planks, through-beams with sewn fastenings, and structural materials of the western Indian Ocean region such as African, Arabian and Indian timbers. On the Belitung wreck, the wadding with the 'x' pattern was on both sides of the planks. There was evidence of some use of what may have been Southeast Asian materials such as paperbark, and hibiscus fibre, indicating the ship may have been re-sewn in SE Asia with materials available there. This paper will examine the archaeological, ethnographic and historical information that provided a basis for the evolution of the design and of the construction process, and discuss the experimentation and reasoning behind decisions concerning form, materials and structure of the reconstruction.