Since the 1960s, Southeast Asia has seen a big rise in both commercial and illicit salvage of underwater cultural heritage.
An example: Fishers in Karawang targeted a site in nearby Subang, Indonesia, and looted more than 1 ton of coins and metal artefacts from the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company / VOC) and Dutch Colonial periods.
These items are often taken from unprotected sites and sold through middlemen and auction houses to collectors and museums. In this process, the connection to their original locations is lost or obscured, diminishing their cultural and historical significance.
This project aims to address that challenge by working out which object came from what shipwreck, and how it came to be out of the water and in collections.
