MOKPO — An event marking 50 years of underwater excavation in South Korea will open this month, offering a look at a field that began with the 1976 excavation of the Sinan shipwreck and now extends to projects in Vietnam and Mongolia.
The National Research Institute of Maritime Heritage said it will hold the "50th Anniversary of Korean Underwater Excavation" events from the 14th to the 19th at its headquarters in Mokpo, Jeonnam Province. The opening ceremony on the 14th will feature a screening of a documentary on the 50-year history, a special performance and awards for people who contributed to the field's development. A special exhibition, "Rosewood: Timber Across the Sea," opens the same day. The exhibition presents about 370 artifacts centered on the rosewood timber recovered from the Sinan shipwreck, a key trade good that illuminates maritime exchange across medieval East Asia.
A tour of the Sinan seabed site follows on the 15th. Participants will board the Joseon Envoy Ship, a vessel the institute reconstructed using traditional Korean shipbuilding techniques, and sail over the waters off Jeungdo Island in Sinan County where buried relics marked the start of Korean underwater archaeology. An international academic conference on the 16th and 17th will examine research findings on the rosewood timber recovered from the Sinan shipwreck in connection with the exhibition, and discuss tasks for the next 50 years.
Korean underwater excavation began with the Sinan shipwreck, found in waters off Sinan in Jeonnam Province in 1976. The vessel was a trading ship that sank off Sinan in 1323 while sailing from China's Yuan dynasty to Japan. Excavation surveys conducted from 1976 to 1984 recovered the hull and about 27,000 artifacts. The later discoveries of the Wando and Taean shipwrecks established underwater excavation as a major field. Korean expertise has since moved abroad, with the country supporting underwater heritage excavation in Vietnam and Mongolia under government-level agreements.
"We chose 'Currents of History, Waves of the Future' as our official slogan and will present a range of programs to look back on the past half-century and share a future vision of reaching out to the world," the institute said.
