New York

The rewards of recovered treasure are never just about the loot, however wondrous the objects, but equally about the stories that come to the surface: Where were the contents made, why were they assembled, how were they lost and ultimately found, what human tragedy or controversy attaches thereto? And what new light is cast on history by the treasure’s time-capsule revelations? The Asia Society Museum show “Secrets of the Sea: A Tang Shipwreck and Early Trade in Asia” delivers to the visitor a gratifying trove of such stories.

In the late 1990s, fishermen diving for sea cucumbers off the coast of Indonesia notice a raised mound that turns out to be a shipwreck dating to c. 825-850. The water depth there has grown shallow, which makes the find vulnerable to looters. Indonesia’s government acts quickly, allowing a commercial salvage company to save the remnants by following meticulously correct procedures. In 2005, most of the found cargo is purchased by what would become the Asian Civilizations Museum in Singapore—some 60,000 items, mainly ceramics. The 78 select objects in the Asia Society exhibition are on loan from that collection.

Ceramics constitute most of the show. The first exhibit is a delicate little white cup, still encrusted with sediment, still stoneware not porcelain, not yet Ming quality but pointing the way. Nearby sit two sturdy white ceramics, a ewer for water and a lamp with slits for the light to show through. One imagines the shadows cast on the deck of the ancient ship at night—for these are objects used by the crew who lived almost entirely on deck, the holds being packed with cargo. A picture soon emerges of a hard life likely resulting in high attrition of personnel—the cargo mattered more— with replacements by new hands at various ports from China to Abbasid lands. A polyglot crew—how did they converse? Who in charge made it all work? We don’t know.

What we do know is astonishing enough. The Middle East produced the dhow-like vessel, but China produced the wares. Such a huge consignment points to a highly evolved international infrastructure. This wreck, despite its size, didn’t stop the trade. The ceramics came from seven different kiln centers along the north-south length of eastern China, but mainly from Changsha, a city near the great river-canal network and capital of numerous dynastic kingdoms down the centuries. Examples of Changsha bowls in the show look uncannily like bowls made in Iran to this day. Ergo, we are looking at early Chinese exportware imitating the style of the destination country, so common in post-Renaissance Europe. How did the Abbasid craftsmen survive inundation by Chinese goods? Still a relevant question when updated to our time.

In the main room, we see examples of two waist-high urns, roughly glazed, which contained the freight of packed plates stuffed with mud and straw. Nearby stands a creamy-white long-necked ewer, also waist-high, a familiar shape in Aladdin’s Arabia (albeit on a smaller scale) but topped with a very Chinese detail: a dragon head. According to the show’s curator, Adriana Proser, it was probably meant as a decorative gift. No doubt diplomacy, not to say bribery, played a critical role in such a big-business endeavor. And indeed the show’s little gold and silver objects are eloquent of smaller gift-giving exigencies very like our own day’s. We learn of a startling object: a nose cup. Cognoscenti drank wine through the nose. A Song dynasty poet praised the technique, but nobody in more recent centuries believed it until the wreck furnished proof. We see that the glazing or color wash of many bowls resembles Tang dynasty funerary ware, so popular among collectors in recent years. We learn that Tang authorities eventually outlawed extravagant burials, so the craftsmen switched to making exportware.

The show is full of lessons, big and small, about a moment of globalized trade with its attendant hardships and luxuries. Treasure stories, at their best, can tell us as much about ourselves as land-based archaeology—sometimes more.