Deep beneath the ocean surface, colorful ceramic fragments have been scattered and stacked upon one another for centuries. Some remain whole, others broken, many still covered with corals and ocean dust. Once precious commodities, these pieces have become time capsules, carried into the Vietnamese waters by ships that never reached their destinations. What stories might these centuries-old ceramic artifacts hold about Vietnam’s connection with surrounding kingdoms?
Map: Six ancient ships excavated in Vietnamese waters. Image via Vietnam National Museum of History.
In the 1990s, at least six shipwrecks were found and excavated in Vietnamese territorial waters — from both the Gulf of Thailand and the East Sea — through efforts by Vietnamese and international archaeologists and authorities. Hundreds of thousands of artifacts from each shipwreck were discovered, studied, preserved, and now held in different major museum collections in Vietnam as well as abroad. Today, a permanent collection of “Asian ceramics,” found from shipwrecks dating from the 9th century until the 18th centuries, are now on display at the Ho Chi Minh City Museum of History.
One of the first factors that captures a viewer’s attention in a ceramic piece, perhaps, is its colors and patterns. We begin tracing the details: who or what is depicted, where this piece might have come from, or what purpose it once served. Such questions lead us to imagine the lives of those who could afford and own these expensive-looking objects, perhaps belonging only to wealthy families or individuals in the past.
Yet, more than just old commodities or museum displays, these shipwrecked ceramics tell us a bigger story of Vietnam in the centuries-old maritime trade, long before the arrival of the first Europeans. They revealed Vietnam’s connections with neighboring kingdoms and positioned the country within the East and Southeast Asian trade routes and beyond, offering a broader perspective of Vietnam as a part of both art history and global trade history.
Beginning with artifacts from Vietnam itself, a collection of high-quality Chu Đậu ceramics was found from the 15th-century Chàm island shipwreck in Quảng Nam. It includes an estimated total of 240,000 artifacts, including ceramics of foreign origins, excavated over three years from 1997 to 2000. Chàm Island (Cù Lao Chàm), which belongs to Hội An, occupied a significant position along the Southeast Asian trade routes. Originally produced in Hải Dương, Chu Đậu ceramics flourished in the 15th century and are renowned for their fine lines and decorative motifs of flora, animals, landscapes, and folk-inspired themes. The pieces found in the Chàm island shipwreck were primarily blue-and-white wares: housewares, containers, utensils for eating and drinking, and items used for religious ceremonies. Designed specifically for the overseas market, the ceramic pieces highlight both the kingdom’s development of export ceramics and participation in international trade.
Plates. Polychrome-glazed stoneware. Chu Đậu ceramics. Vietnam, 15th century.
Details of Chu Đậu ceramics. Vietnam, 15th century.
An important collection from the shipwreck features “Chăm pottery,” as described by the museum text: glazed ceramic crafted by the Chăm people or using Chăm techniques within the Champa kingdom (present-day Central Vietnam), dating from 2nd to 17th centuries. These objects seem to have been overlooked in Chăm history, compared to the more prominent religious statues in museum collections. The artifacts on display include brown-glazed, green-glazed stoneware dishes, bowls, and ewers. Highlights on display is a large dish decorated with Chăm script along its edges, alongside large jars with floral motifs.
Plate. “Cham pottery”. Vietnam, 15th century.
Champa’s pottery production and maritime trade have flourished since the 10th century, maintaining strong networks with the Philippines and other Southeast Asian kingdoms. Although production declined significantly due to the fall of Vijaya state and the invasion by the northern kingdom of Đại Việt in 1471 (during the Later Lê dynasty), the Champa kingdom played a significant role as a destination and waypoint by merchant boats from surrounding kingdoms in Southeast Asia and beyond, even serving as intermediaries between Đại Việt and the Malay Archipelago within the Muslim trade networks.
Details of “Cham pottery” from the permanent collection of Ho Chi Minh City Museum of History.
Off the southwest coast, towards the Gulf of Thailand, the maritime trade with the Ayutthaya Kingdom (present-day Thailand) is evident in the Hòn Dầm Island shipwreck in Kiên Giang in the 15th century. A large quantity of Thai ceramics, including celadon stoneware and brown-glazed pieces, was produced by kilns in Sawankhalok and Sukhothai. On display are celadon stoneware of patterned dishes, elephant-shaped lamp stands, as well as an elephant figurine with soldiers, partially attached with coral remains. In addition, iron-brown and white-glazed stoneware includes Kinnari and elephant-shaped ewers, covered jars with patterns, and bowls decorated with lotus and chrysanthemum motifs, with petals spreading elegantly across the surfaces.
Kinnari-shaped ewer (left) and Elephant-shaped ewer (right). Iron-brown and white-glazed stoneware. Thailand, 15th century.
Continuing along the timeline, the largest quantity of 18th-century Chinese porcelain was found from the Cà Mau shipwreck, dating to the Yongzheng reign (1723–1735) of the Qing Dynasty and excavated between 1998 and 1999. Most of the pieces were blue-and-white and multi-color wares produced at Jingdezhen kilns in Jiangxi and many from Guangdong. Their decorations commonly depict Chinese landscapes and human figures, and the assemblage includes plates, bowls, teapots, tea cups, kendi, snuff bottles, etc.
Chinese blue-and-white porcelain. Qing China, Yongzheng era (1723–1735).
In addition, many pieces feature European motifs. A notable example is a plate decorated along the edge with sea wave patterns, with images of two men and another man walking with a buffalo. According to Nguyễn Đình Chiến’s article “Đồ gốm sứ trong các con tàu đắm ở vùng biển Việt Nam” (Ceramics from the shipwrecks off the coast of Vietnam), the plate depicts a landscape of a fisherman village in Deshima — an artificial island served as a Dutch trading post in Nagasaki, Japan in the early mid mid-17th century — showing a sand hill, with a lighthouse, a church, and houses by the fishing boats appearing behind. This indicates that similar wares, including milk bottles and wine jugs, were made to fill the demand from the European market at the time.
One standout piece from this shipwreck is an artifact composed of stacked Chinese blue-and-white tea cups, referred to by the museum as the 18th-century “Sea sculpture.” Despite its small size, it embodies both fragility and endurance, surviving against the underwater pressure and through layers of time. Its mass of wrecked and broken remains fused together. The positioning of the cups suggests how such wares may have been packed within containers during their journey across the sea. Although the ship’s routes and destinations remain unknown, the shipwreck’s location in Cà Mau waters suggests that it may have been heading south from China towards the Malay Archipelago, before continuing across the oceans to other continents.
Despite the tragic fate of these ships and the commodities they carried, their remains serve as significant evidence for archeologists and historians studying Vietnam’s maritime trade since the dynastic periods, which is often overlooked nowadays in the overall history. Ceramic artifacts, once part of the expensive global products, carry aesthetic values, traces of life across continents. Shipwrecked ceramics offer an alternative lens of understanding interconnectedness between art and other socio-political dynamics and trade histories. They move beyond land-centric narratives and highlight Vietnam’s strategic location between East and Southeast Asia within the global trade, even amid social and political upheavals, and the rise and fall of kingdoms.
The permanent collection “Asian Ceramics” is on view at Ho Chi Minh City Museum of History. More information can be found on the museum’s official website.
