Pandanan Wreck
In the 15th century, merchant vesselss were already sailing through Southeast Asia, charting new routes for trade and commerce and venturing into the unknown.
Some of these ships were successful, braving the forces of nature, discovering new countries, and establishing new contacts. But some were not so lucky. Some surrendered to storms.
In 1993, one of these ships was found at the bottom of the tranquil waters of idyllic Pandanan Island, south of Palawan. Its cargo was miraculously intact, safe from natural predators and the exciting era of maritime enterprise, having been there undisturbed for hundreds of years.
It was as if the contents were buried in time until they were accidentally rediscovered. A Filipino pearl diver of Ecofarm Systems and Resources, Inc. literally unearthed a piece of history as he realized that what he was looking at on the sea floor was not a pearl oyster basket nor any other pearl farm equipment.
It was an antique jar encrusted in corals! Smaller pieces of pottery were spewn out of its mouth.
Controlled excavation followed in coordination with the National Museum, soon after the diver told his superiors about the spectacular find. Expert archeologists, professional divers and scientific researchers unraveled a significant link to the past that may alter Philippine history as Western writers have chronicled it.
The wreck yielded 4,722 pieces of pre-colonial artifacts when the excavation ended on the 15th of May 1995, some 80% of them intact. The divers spent a total of 1,044 hours underwater and made 947 dives.
The cargo was being brought to the Philippines by a Chinese-type merchant vessel to trade in forest products, gold and the famous South Sea Pearls. A Chinese copper coin belonging to the Yong Le period (1403-24) gives the relative dating for this vessel.
This discovery is a concrete reaffirmation that before the Europeans came to Southeast Asia, an active interchange had already existed among the peoples in the region. That one trading vessel carried such a diversity of ceramics and other items from China, Vietnam and Thailand clearly demonstrates the complexity of the ancient maritime trade between the Philippines and her Southeast Asian neighbors as well as with Japan, India and the Arab nations.
A book was published entitled THE PEARL ROAD: Tales of Treasure Ships in the Philippines. This book further explains the Pandanan wreck, the tradewares that were found, Chinese trade during the 15th century, the much sought after Philippine South Sea pearls, and the Badjao who dive for these pearls.