Surveying and Documenting the Underwater Heritage of Hong Kong - Stage 1 Hong Kong Underwater Heritage Group February 2012 Table of Contents Acknowledgements i List of Figures ii Project Background and Aims 1 Project Design 3 Hong Kong Underwater Cultural Heritage Database 5 Documentary and Oral Historical Research 6 Non-shipwreck site survey 7 Shipwreck site survey 16 Other sites 24 Project promotion and information dissemination 27 Conclusions and Recommendations 29 References 31 Appendices Appendix 1: United Kingdom Hydrographic Office database information on the shipwreck surveyed in this project Appendix 2: Hong Kong Underwater Heritage (HKUH) Database with a reduced number of fields Appendix 3: HKUH Database entry for the shipwreck site surveyed in this project Appendix 4: HKUH Database for the Town Island ceramics site Appendix 5: Photographic record of the recovered blue-and-white porcelain and a preliminary assessment Appendix 6: List of all 313 artefacts recorded Appendix 7: Information brochure in Chinese and English Acknowledgements We would like to thank the Lord Wilson Heritage Trust (LWHT) for the grant that enabled us to pursue this project. This work was carried in accordance with a Licence to Excavate and Search for Antiquities granted by the Antiquities Authority pursuant to the Antiquities and Monuments Ordnance, Chapter 53, Section 13, being licence numbers 282 and 304 issued to William (Bill) Jeffery. This report constitutes one of conditions required in the licence and it has been put into the broader context of the LWHT project. The report has been compiled by Dr Bill Jeffery from the field work, writing and other work of the whole Hong Kong Underwater Heritage Group (HKUHG). We also acknowledge the support of the CIE-Centre for International Heritage Activities, through the contract with Dr Bill Jeffery that enabled him to spend more time in Hong Kong than was initially planned and they also contributed additional funding to ensure the shipwreck survey was implemented effectively. The Environmental Resources Management (ERM) Foundation provided additional funding for printing a brochure that was disseminated at the Hong Kong Museum and provided support in other areas of this project and we would also like to thank them. In November 2010, the Hong Kong Maritime Museum (HKMM) sought the assistance of the HKUHG to help with their exhibition Fathoming the Sea and they also displayed some of the preliminary outcomes of this project thus providing some effective promotion of the project and we would like to thank them for this opportunity. A number of people in the survey area gave us their time to talk about sites and histories which was not only fruitful but very enjoyable, particularly the residents of Kau Sai Chau, Tap Mun, Ko Lau Wan and Sham Chung Wan. We would particularly like to thank Elizabeth Ho from Froggy Diver who reduced the price of the boat and diving equipment hire to fit within our budget, Mr So and his team at the fishpond in Long Harbour, Ricky Lee and Mr Ma, two local dive instructors for their valuable information about sites, Mr Yeung Chung-kwong, Deputy Hydrographer of the Marine Department, Mr Richard Chan and his crew for investigating some sites, Dr LIU wensuo from Sun Yat-sen University and Mr Raymond NG from ERM Hong Kong for making preliminary assessments of the artefacts recovered from the Town Island site, YIU Lok- Lun for the design of a logo for HKUHG, and Sarah Heaver, Paul Harrison, David Riach for their contributions. Three other residents of Hong Kong have participated in a number of activities with the group and although not part of the core team, they have provided support and assistance, being Sunny NG, Alan LAU and Isis TSO. i List of Figures Figure 1: The project’s survey area 4 Figure 2: Two HKUHG members talking to resident of Ko Lau wan 6 Figure 3: Residents of Tap Mun talking to HKUHG member 6 Figure 4: Location of Town Island, source Google Earth 7 Figure 5: The site, from north to south—the grid square, baselines and shoreline 8 Figure 6: Recording artefact locations 8 Figure 7: Photographic recording of tagged artefacts 8 Figure 8: Surface artefacts recorded in the 30 m x 30 m grid square, 9 the larger circles represent the artefacts recovered Figure 9: Artefacts scattered on the seabed 9 Figure 10: Ceramic bowl covered with algae 9 Figure 11: Surface artefacts recorded along the north-south baseline, 10 the larger circles represent the artefacts recovered Figure 12: Blue-and-white spoon 11 Figure 13: Pottery teapot 11 Figure 14: Possibly mid 17 th C. porcelain shard 11 Figure 15: Chinese character ‘double happiest’ 11 Figure 16: Porcelain dish, bird pattern, no. 501 12 Figure 17: Small porcelain bowl, possibly mid 17 th C. 12 Figure 18: Cup recovered from site 12 Figure 19: Cup at Hong Kong Discovery Centre 12 Figure 20: Base of pottery bowl 13 Figure 21: Rim and neck of a large brown glazed pottery jug 13 ii Figure 22: Initial sorting and cataloguing the recovered artefacts 14 Figure 23: Some of the recovered artefacts during the desalination process 14 and after some mechanical cleaning Figure 24: A pH / conductivity tester was used to measure the amount of 15 salt (chlorides) in parts-per-million (ppm) in the wash water. Much of this work was carried out by HKUHG member Grace Chow Figure 25: Some house-hold wares used aboard local boats (2011 exhibition 15 at Hong Kong Museum of History) Figure 26: Location of shipwreck site, source Google Earth 16 Figure 27: Divers being checked by Dive Instructor Rick Chan before entering 17 the water and begin work Figure 28: Shipwreck site plan developed by HKUHG member Marco Li using 18 computer program Site Recorder 4 to input data from the survey information collected by the whole group Figure 29: An elevation of the shipwreck site. The figures on the right-hand side 19 denote the depth of the water (Drawn by Marco Li using Site Recorder 4 ) Figure 30: Mosaic B indicated on the site plan showing frames, planking and 19 a steel section Figure 31: Mosaic A indicated on the site plan, looking at the stern transom 19 Figure 32: The anchor on the site 20 Figure 33: A similar anchor and bow rail on a fishing boat at Aberdeen 20 Figure 34: The diesel engine sitting on timber ‘floors’ 20 Figure 35: Carrying out detailed drawing 20 Figure 36: One of three propeller blades, this one is bent over 21 Figure 37: Timber frames 21 Figure 38: The timber stem with frames and planking in the background 21 Figure 39: Part of the shipwreck site 22 Figure 40: Fishing vessel at Aberdeen 22 Figure 41: Group members watching a monitor for video taken by a camera 24 dropped into the sea iii Figure 42: The drop camera underwater 24 Figure 43: Stone Lion off Tap Mun 25 Figure 44: Base for Stone Lion 25 Figure 45: Scattering of modern ceramics off Kat O 25 Figures 46: The ship Nan An 26 Figure 47: The cement bags found on the site today 26 Figure 48: The rock representing the muscle that joined the two shells, 26 Kau Sai Chau and Jin Island Figure 49: Part of the Underwater Cultural Heritage section of the Hong Kong 27 Maritime Museum (HKMM) exhibition Figure 50: The HKUHG and HKMM staff visiting the Guangdong Maritime Silk 28 Road Museum, the complete Song Dynasty shipwreck and its 60,000 ceramics is located in the tank behind the group iv Project Background and Aims The project began in August 2009 although it was in 2008 that the idea of the project was first discussed. This was when a group of six Hong Kong Chinese recreational divers and two dive instructors (Grace CHOW Sin-Man, Marco LI Li-Hen, Tammy CHAN Sau-Man, Rick CHAN Kei-Yip, Peggy WONG Pui-Kee and Lydia HO Wing-Chi) participated in a number of the Nautical Archaeology Society (NAS) training programs provided by Dr Bill Jeffery. The group implemented an underwater survey of a scatter of ceramics off Port Island and they compiled a report as part of the NAS training. In combination with Bill Jeffery, they went onto form a group called the Hong Kong Underwater Heritage Group (HKUHG) and successfully sought funding from the Lord Wilson Heritage Trust to implement this project, titled Surveying and Documenting the Underwater Heritage of Hong Kong - Stage 1. The objectives of the project were directly related to the objectives of the Lord Wilson Heritage Trust, which were to promote the preservation and conservation of Hong Kong’s heritage, through the identification of archaeological sites in Hong Kong and the publication of books and other articles. While numerous projects have been implemented to survey and promote the built heritage and archaeological sites on land, this has never been implemented in regard to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s (HKSAR) underwater cultural heritage sites and this project aimed at starting to correct this imbalance. Hong Kong however does have legal protection of underwater cultural heritage sites through the Antiquities and Monuments Ordinance 1976 and the Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance in 1998. The former piece of legislation declares sites older than 1800 to be owned by the Hong Kong government and for the discovery of a site or an antiquity to be reported to AMO. This includes underwater cultural heritage sites and objects, and the legislation requires all artefact searches and recoveries to fulfill certain conditions stipulated in a licence from the Antiquities and Monuments Office (AMO). The Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance makes it mandatory for all designated projects, including offshore projects such as cable laying, pipelines, wind farms and resort development to complete an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) which includes a Marine Archaeology Investigation (MAI).