[MSN] Foreign smugglers target China's sunken treasures

[Museum Security Network Mailing list]

  Foreign smugglers target China's sunken treasures

Mon Apr 23, 2007 10:36PM EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) - Foreign smugglers are making use of advanced 
technology to steal China's seabed treasures, mostly priceless porcelain 
from ancient shipwrecks, the China Daily said on Tuesday.

The relics, from thousands of sunken ships, were traded beyond China's 
maritime boundaries before they are shipped to markets worldwide, many 
to the United States, the newspaper said.

Shan Jixiang, director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, 
was quoted as saying the government had recovered a "great number" of 
precious items stolen from the country in the past few decades.

China's seabed heritage has been pursued in earnest by art collectors 
and dealers since the beginning of 2005, when about 15,000 pieces, 
mainly blue-and-white porcelain about 300 years old, were found in a 
shipwreck off the coast of east China's Fujian province.

http://www.reuters.com