Tian Ya Chuan Shipwreck Porcelain Saucer Greenish
Chinese Porcelain Saucer
Tain Yanchuan - "The ship that sailed to the edge of Heaven and Earth”
Chinese Junk Shipwreck
Circa: 1115
Salvaged by: Marc and Krist Geriene
Recovered: 1993-1996
Inventory #: Sung L-3705
Dimensions: 30 x 125
Description: Greenish gray w/ floral design
Approximately nine hundred years ago (c. 1 115), a monsoon storm crashed the ocean-going junk, its men and cargo of porcelain onto an open-sea reef in the South China Sea too far for a human being to swim to the safety of dry land. The reef was shallow and much of the shipwreck came to rest in less than 30 feet of water. Over the last nine centuries, the reefs living framework entombed the wreckage while the wooden ship decayed and disappeared, leaving only the porcelain packaged in large cargo jars which were in turn packaged in a coral concretion. lncredibly, these giant cargo jars while broken, still were able to adequately protect their contents so securely that most of the porcelain was discovered intact. Some of the pieces were partially broken, while the hostile environment of the sea etched other items; a few rare artifacts became home to centuries of gradual coral growth while others were as bright as the day they left the kiln.