In 1998, the Belitung Shipwreck was found off Indonesia's Belitung Island after lying at the bottom of the sea for about 1,000 years.
The ship was an Arabian trading dhow that likely sailed between China and the Arab world during the 9th century A.D. The cultural relics found on the shipwreck represent the largest and most extensive collection of cultural relics of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) yet found overseas. The collection, which includes as many as 60,000 individual pieces of ceramics, provides strong evidence of trade and cultural exchanges between China and countries in the Middle East during the first half of the 9th century.
