Dragon Sea: A True Tale of Treasure, Archeology, and Greed off the Coast of Vietnam
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.67 (844 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0151012075 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 368 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2017-02-15 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
The stakes were high: The Hoi An wreck lay hundreds of feet down in a typhoon-prone stretch of water off the coast of Vietnam known as the Dragon Sea. But the potential rewards were equally high: Bound would revolutionize thinking about Vietnamese ceramics, and his partner would make a fortune auctioning off the pieces. Hired as the project’s manager, Frank Pope watched the tumultuous drama of the Hoi An unfold. The costs were unprecedented. When Oxford archeologist Mensun Bound—dubbed the “Indiana Jones of the Deep” by the Discovery Channel—teamed up with a financier to salvage a sunken trove of fifteenth-century porcelain, it seemed a dream enterprise. Raising its contents required saturation diving, a crew of 160, and a fleet of boats. In Dragon Sea he delivers an engrossing tale of danger, adventure, and ambition—a fascinating object lesson in what happens when scholarship and money join forces to recover lost treasure.
Pope expertly shows how the same ocean that can terrify and enrich can also "lay bare the very nature of man." (Jan.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. Pope is equally adept at illuminating "the peculiarly powerful allure of shipwrecks" that drives the Hoi An team as he is in explaining the larger and more difficult context of modern excavation efforts, where "maritime archeologists who were regularly leading excavations around the world could be counted on the fingers of one hand, but the number of looters, souvenir-seekers, and well-equipped treasure-hunters was in the high hundreds." But Pope's strength in detailing the Hoi An story comes from his fascinating in-depth portraits of the main play
Treasure Versus History Rob Hardy Vietnam has spent almost all its past under control of China, or under threat of such control. There was a brief "golden age" of eighty years in the fifteenth century when it ruled itself, and its art, including making and glazing ceramics, broke free from the traditions of its big northern neighbor. The years of independence descended into chaos when a civil war began, and the art of the period was largely lost, even the ceramics that were dispersed in trade and then were lost. The artistic production of the age of independence was gone, not enough of it remaining to be sys. "Just as the moon lures the tides, the ocean tugs at a man's mind." In describing the excavation of a junk which sank off the north coast of Viet Nam in the mid-fifteenth century, Frank Pope focuses on the people who engage in excavation work--the maritime archaeologist vs. the treasure hunter, the financiers who supply the funds that make underwater excavation possible, the looters (often fishermen) who damage sites, the academics who engage in fierce competition for recognition within the field, and the divers, who have to live underwater in small, pressurized containers for over a month at a time. He also includes the history of maritime . "Diving for Dragons" according to Jeannie Mancini. In the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam, author Frank Pope joins archaeologist Mensun Bound, and a large crew of divers and specialists as they locate the shipwreck of a 1Diving for Dragons Jeannie Mancini In the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam, author Frank Pope joins archaeologist Mensun Bound, and a large crew of divers and specialists as they locate the shipwreck of a 14th century cargo ship they dub the Hoi An.Pope has the reader totally engrossed as he details one of the largest underwater archaeological finds to date. Step by step he brings you into the world of what it takes to begin a maritime recovery endeavor of this magnitude. As you start the early pages Pope pulls you down quickly into the unknown depths and new frontiers that the lure of the sea always . th century cargo ship they dub the Hoi An.Pope has the reader totally engrossed as he details one of the largest underwater archaeological finds to date. Step by step he brings you into the world of what it takes to begin a maritime recovery endeavor of this magnitude. As you start the early pages Pope pulls you down quickly into the unknown depths and new frontiers that the lure of the sea always