Le Trésor de la Jonque Engloutie _ 15 000 objets exhumés en mer de Chine _ DOC COMPLET

Centuries ago, in the sea of China, a ship carried by the waves, a red dot wavering on the sea, a simple bubble of plastic has recently left its mark on the moving trail. Sixty meters below, very old remains are about to bear witness to a story whose film was one day brutally interrupted. On the surface, contrasting with the calm of the depths, the agitation is at its peak with the arrival of the archaeological search team. On the barge, which will serve as an operational base, Michel Louvre, the head of the expedition, welcomes archaeologists, divers, submarine pilots, mechanics, doctors, about fifty search professionals from the high seas from all over the globe, Europe, Asia, Australia. Among them, Jerzy Gabronski, a Dutchman, a specialist in naval archaeology, is preparing to coordinate the work with Michel Louvre. At the service of this elite team, the expedition has exceptional technical means. Like this barge, 60 meters long, which must now be positioned at the bow of the ship, it is loaded by means of four giant anchors weighing 5 tons each. Like every time, Michel participates directly in the handling. Twenty years of fighting the seas of the world does not delay the beginning of his original passion. The experience acquired allows him today to tackle one of the largest sites in the history of marine archaeology. At this precise place, centuries ago, an Asian ship disappeared in the waves. History could have ended there. But fate wanted it to arrive off the coast of Borneo, facing the sultanate of Brunei, which exploits today the resources in oil and natural gas of the region. And so one day, during a seismic tracking study, the engineers of the company Elf Agiten come across the curious anomalies at the level of the submarine relief. The analysis of the images soon reveals the exceptional remains of a very old shipwreck. Perhaps one of these mythical junks that make up the Indian Ocean and the Sea of China the largest maritime market in the world. A cooperation agreement is immediately signed between the sultanate of Brunei, the French Ministry of Culture, and Elf Agiten, who decides to finance the excavations. A year later, Michel Lourdes is on site, at the head of a real armada. After a few centuries, history is about to begin. First of all, hello, and welcome to everyone I haven't even had time to greet for 24 hours. So quickly, we're going to do a general briefing. I'm going to try to explain to you a little bit who does what and why we do it. First of all, archaeologists would have preferred to work a year and a half. Obviously, that was not possible. Given the financial cost of the operation, the budget allows us to work two months on the area. Two months to save as much information as possible and to put them in the shelter of wreckers or simply the wear and tear of time. Gentlemen, I'm with you. That's great. Watch out for the drop. Which drop? Burial. Can we send your passenger? Affirmative. Thank you. Without wasting time, Michel makes a first dive of recognition. Apart from the few images shot a year earlier, during his discovery, Michel knows nothing about the site. He must absolutely appreciate the dimensions and the relief to organize search operations. The submarine is the ideal exploration machine. Able to go down to 1,000 meters and stay there for two days, it opens to its passengers a fabulous window to the most secret of the oceans. Do you have an idea of what we're going to find at the bottom? Well, I know what we're supposed to find at the bottom, which is very different. It's a kind of maple leaf. You can't say there's a more important axis than the other. It's roughly 22 meters by 17. So it's quite misleading. The surface of the dune is 35 meters deep. We're heading east from there. The remains of the wreck rest at more than 60 meters. At this depth, the light becomes fragile. We're at 48 meters. You feel like you're floating above the clouds. You really feel like you're at the bottom. Look, look, you have a shitty halo. Zero visibility. 52 meters. 53 meters. That's terrible. From 42 to 44 meters, there's absolutely no visibility. You can't see anything, not even the arms. So it's really delicate, delicate, delicate. In the midst of the shock, the anxiety suddenly increases. What if the site had been destroyed in one fell swoop, devastated by piles of rubble? What if the expedition had been set up for nothing? To get the hang of it, Michel decides to use a remote-controlled camera robot. Its engines lift fewer vessels than those of the submarine. It's going up. It's coming out of the tank. It hasn't moved. It's not huge. That's it. It's going to open up here. 62 meters. It's going up a bit. You've got it here. You've got 1.5 meters. 1.5 meters from here. That's great. Look at these pieces. Time suddenly stopped. The images themselves seem to be several centuries old. The site is intact. Suddenly, the robot's commands no longer respond. I'm going to see if... Maybe there's just a ship on it. It's hooked. The robot has taken the propellers in a fishing line, himself hooked to a piece of pottery. Brutally released from his secular sleep, this fragile witness arouses a considerable emotion. Perhaps it will deliver the very first answers to the questions that suddenly arise. Where did the ship and its cargo come from? When did it make the offering? It's ceramic. And it's a part of a big storage jar called a matava. And it's a very common product, which is used for transport and the storage of all different kinds of goods, both liquid and solid. Because it's very common, it's very difficult to date. Because this type of ceramic has been used for many centuries. If the age of this jar is still lost in the thickness of time, the object unquestionably reveals a transport of goods, bringing back to the same movement the memory of legendary cargo, spices, precious metals, parties, porcelain from China. The extraordinary richness of this distant Asia inspired the storytellers of the 1,001 nights, ignited the stories of Marco Polo and still haunts the memory of men today. Centuries later, armed with more and more sophisticated tools, it is the traces of this mythical memory that scientists pursue. On the third day of work, the time has come for the divers to get to work. It is not yet a matter of reassembling the remains of the wreck, but of developing the melting zone. These large metal frames will serve to frame the bottom in numbered plots. They will allow archaeologists to locate the place of origin of each object and to draw up a map of the site. This rigorous methodology makes all the difference between archaeological excavation and the looting of parts. Today, the framing will be done without any visibility. This performance, only the best divers can achieve. Trained to work in the most difficult conditions, these men are most often recruited by oil companies. This time, it is for knowledge that they risk their lives. Feeding from the surface in a gaseous mixture, the diver does not have to worry about the state of his reserves. It depends entirely on the vigilance of the diver chiefs installed on the boat. The slightest error in the setting of the pumps, the slightest second of inattention, could be fatal. The black ink of the depths, the diver looks for the blind spot, the point of fixation of the frames. A dangerous job because of the stone fish, the thorns loaded with a fulgurant poison. After 30 minutes of work, he is tenderly. Two hours will be necessary to regain the surface. From their cabin, the diver chiefs orchestrate their way back to the light. They determine the speed and calculate the duration of each decompression level. A few meters from the surface, a bell allows the diver to rest during the last and longest of his steps. And maybe to dream that in a hundred meters, it is several centuries that he has just traveled. My very practical problem is we have the site roughly like that, the carousel like that. The problem is to position this one, which will be attached to the core. You're going to have four here. But how do you fix it? You put it three meters, four meters further, you probably put it in the base. It will take six days to reach the end of the carousel operations. Six days to reveal the obscure geography of the site. Six days to flirt with a treasure without ever being able to touch a single piece. Oh, Sergei! Oh yeah, I was going to give it to you. Sergei! And then suddenly, on the morning of the seventh day, the news emerged from the depths, as if the sea had finally agreed to release its memory. The visibility miraculously improved. Tightly packed in their vases, thousands of objects pile up on hundreds of square meters in a gigantic and tragic chaos, witness the last moments of the ship. I've rarely seen this. I've never even seen this. Because it's both bigger, higher, more massive than everything I've seen. I think there are between 10 and 15,000 different pieces. It is simply the most important cargaison ever found in the Sea of ​​China. After having verified that the carousel was perfectly placed, Michel now has a clear view of the site. With the help of Jerzy, he decides on the first square to search. Deep down, the carousel is short-lived, and the visibility still weakens when the diver begins to extract the objects from the vase. As if the sea itself was rebelling against being so disposed. Despite the difficulties, a first basket soon emerges from the clouds like a sudden dream come true. After centuries of patience, the rescue operations have finally begun. Passing in a few minutes from one bank to the other of time, fragments of a still very mysterious story reappear in the light. They are already bearers of the stigmas of their very long wait, which opens the show. Banal in their time, they have become rare and now acquire the status of antiquity. Some of them may still keep traces of what they transported to Jalis. Their content is therefore systematically filtered through a series of sieves with increasingly fine mesh. The residues are meticulously preserved. Later, they will be analyzed by specialists who will try to determine the exact nature. After a quick cleaning, objects of a larger size are listed according to their nature. Each jar is labeled and then recorded. For now, it is simply a matter of collecting all the available information. However, a remark already arouses Michel's curiosity. The first jars are evidently of different origins. Some come from Thailand, others, smaller, finer, are typical of Vietnamese production. Two countries located 1,500 km from the site of the fire. The material contained in the next basket is difficult to identify at the moment as it is covered with mud. Plates, dishes, no doubt, but of what origin? The example, cleaned by Michel, gives an explosive answer. This is porcelain from China, classic, with a beautiful blue and white decor. It is very beautiful, it is quite fine. And there, really, it seems very, very well preserved. We had doubts because the top of the load is a little more compressed. We suspected that by taking it into the vase, we would have very well preserved objects. So here we have objects that are in perfect condition, just an iris, very, very beautiful drawings, very well drawn. So these are really very beautiful pieces. It confirms both the qualitative interest of the load and the quantitative interest, as we can see, since they already produce a lot of furniture on almost 1.5 m². Because it is not an isolated piece. The third basket reveals, in an emotional way, a series of plates still piled up. So we probably loaded them. Proof that the ship was carrying a whole load of blue and white porcelain. In a few hours, the emotion won everyone over. For a professional diver, it's a dream. It's great. But for us, it's hard work. It's hard work. On the side of archaeologists, we marvel at the state of conservation of certain pieces. For example, this fruit cut at the edge, so thin that it tints like crystal. Or this large plate, whose fragile coating forces it to be preserved in seawater, while waiting for desalination baths. The reassembled equipment does not remain on the barge. At the end of the day, carefully packed and stored in wooden boxes, it is loaded on a liaison boat from the Bruneian Navy. Tonight, centuries after the shipwreck, a first part of the cargo returns to sea for a new destination, the Archaeological Laboratory. The Archaeological Laboratory is the other side of the device set up by Michel Bou. In these premises, there are nearly 40 people who record, restore, stock, and analyze the remains of the wrecked ship. After a week of digging, more than 800 pieces have already arrived, which requires tireless work. Michel Louvre came especially to the Laboratory to welcome Michel Pierazzoli, a specialist in Chinese porcelain, and try to solve with it an essential point that remains mysterious, that of the date of the carcass. The jars are not reliable indicators, because their shape and decor have changed over the centuries. The decor of the porcelain pieces, on the other hand, are precious clues as to their date. To make them visible, they are first scraped with a scalpel, taking care not to damage the coating. Then treated with chemical products that clean the material in depth and restore the original colors. A piece of porcelain like this was decongested and it was all brown. A chemical test showed that we were able to bring out the porcelain aspect very well. Once this chemical treatment was done, it can be drawn and studied. Michel Pierazzoli can now compare the motifs of the restored pieces with those of objects already listed, such as tombs whose chronology is known. It is ultimately the plant interlaces of this dish that will allow him to specify not only the time, but also the place of production. This is a porcelain made in Jingdezhen, in the north of Jiangxi, which was the great city of porcelain from the 14th century. It is a blue and white, painted in cobalt, under a transparent cover. These are pieces whose decor is typical of the late 15th century. At the end of the 15th century, few people had crossed the gates of Asia. This cargo, now rediscovered, appears as one of the last witnesses of this mythical world that enchanted Marco Polo. At that time, the Sea of ​​China was the theater of an intense commercial traffic, to dimensions so vast that a single ship could enlarge its hulls with objects from the four corners of the continent. Porcelain from the ovens of Jingdezhen, in China, jars from Vietnam, and others made in Thailand. The goods were probably destined for one of the markets in the region, which had been sleeping for five centuries at the bottom of the water, facing the coast of Borneo, in the exact axis of a wide estuary that penetrates the jungle for a few kilometers, to the sultanate of Brunei. Nowadays, the sultanate of Brunei is one of the smallest and richest countries in the world. In Bandar, the capital, public places are covered with marble, the golden mosques at their end. The inhabitants benefit from one of the highest living standards in Asia. Education and health are totally free, real estate loans are offered without interest, and everyone has, on average, three cars. The sultan of Brunei is the heir to a very long history. Muda Hassan al-Bolkiah descends in the right line of the oldest dynasty of the Ottoman Empire, precisely the one that founded the country in the 14th century and made it known to prosperity for 200 years. The fortune of Brunei came at that time from the precious products from the forests of Borneo and was transported to the sultanate by the inhabitants of the center of the island. The wood, the gold, and a camphor with reputed anthallgic virtues attracted many merchants who offered porcelain from China in exchange. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the port of Brunei was one of the most flourishing in the region. The feast that reigned at the court of the sultan dazzled Pigafetta, a companion of Magellan, particularly impressed by the parade elephants, the ornaments of an incredible wealth, and by the extent of the city of Lacustre where it counted about 25,000 fires, or more than 100,000 inhabitants, a huge market for the time to which the cargo that had just been found was undoubtedly destined. Five centuries later, the city of Lacustre still exists and remains the only trace of this great past. The remains, today torn from the sea, constitute the first material evidence of this vast trade that was once the fortune of Brunei. The 20th day of the raid. Bruneian officers congratulate Michel Louvre and his team. Historians of the National Museum or soldiers in charge of the logistics of the expedition, these come regularly to report on the progress of the operations. But it is also with their own history that they now have an appointment. Forgetting the protocol, everyone soon lets themselves be carried by the charm of a simple glass bracelet, a plate of blue and white porcelain or a candy whose finesse of the decor still falls under the concretions but whose shape corresponds so well to the tastes of the inhabitants of the South of the Sea of ​​China. With five centuries of delay, the load finally finds its destination. Today, on the barge, the heat reaches 50 degrees. After four weeks of digging, the amount of material returned to each basket remains always as important. Every day, hundreds of additional objects find the light. There were really for all tastes. The dishes were very decorated, the dishes, on the contrary, very airy in terms of decor. What worries me is that the dig will not last a year and a half. The conditions are still extremely difficult. It is probably the most difficult site I have ever seen. We have the means, but the days are only 24 hours. And even by multiplying, there is also to mark the ground, there are safety rules to follow. As I am not a natural enthusiast, the weather does not make me a fan yet, but it is certain that ... In the Sea of ​​China, the setting sun can be misleading, especially during the storm season. In the evening, the wind suddenly rose. The sky, full of blackness, began to thunder. There is electricity in the air, especially since we are on July 13th. It is 4 o'clock in the morning. France faces Brazil in the final of the World Cup. In the morning, the storm settled. The barge, shaken by the waves, is hit by violent tremors that affect the entire facility. The trailer dedicated to the barge is quickly forced to take the wide rather than break its anchors. After 5 weeks of digging, cut in its momentum, the team must stop, wait, let go for a precious time. While at the bottom, a few tens of meters under their feet, thousands of objects are still waiting for their delivery. On land, the Archaeological Laboratory is now guarded 24 hours a day by Gurkhas, Nepalese soldiers who make up the elite corps of the Bruneian army. Although they work here every day, the staff members are systematically controlled. In a few weeks, it is indeed a treasure of considerable value that has accumulated in these premises. More than 1,200 jars and some 3,000 pieces of porcelain that must be classified one by one according to their shape, size and nature of their decor. Up to 100, which must be weighed to allow the most precise evaluation possible of the number of objects that constituted the load. A first observation is already imposed on Hélène Chollet, specialist in Chinese porcelain. Except for a few very beautiful pieces, this load was essentially composed of domestic porcelain intended for a popular market. The interest of this discovery is major because if the luxury pieces kept in palaces and museums have been able to travel through time, popular porcelain, a witness to everyday life, had completely disappeared. This load thus reveals what was actually traveling five centuries ago from one end to the other in the Sea of ​​China. Under the impact of this revelation, the laboratory suddenly takes the form of a huge market. A market that could have been presented to the eyes of the Bruneians if the load had arrived at its destination. A vast package of exotic products that one would have come to admire their refinement. There would have been one for every taste and for every stock, up to the objects of embroidery. Like this candy, which after restoration reveals the finesse of its decor, but also a big manufacturing flaw. This load of refined and everyday pieces finally arouses distant passions, like an echo of this extraordinary fascination that the porcelain of China exercised. There was only China that made a ceramic so hard, so translucent, so white for porcelain. So it's much healthier, much cleaner, much brighter, much more pleasant to eat porcelain than to eat in the clay, or even in the grits. A kind of opulence, of smoothness, the color too, the brilliance. It fascinated. A fascination that still prevails today in all the strength of its obviousness. One look is enough to be seduced. The inventors, who record each piece on their database, have already sensed more than 25 different types of decor. Through them, all the symbolism of Chinese culture comes back, declined to infinity by a multitude of artisans. On the fifth day of the search, when the first dragon appeared, he seemed to be the only survivor of the shipwreck. Some time later, he appeared as the vanguard of a huge herd of echelons, this mythological animal, a symbol of the perfect good. Its appearance is always the same. A dragon's head, horned, its face turned backwards, a tuff tail, a body covered with scales, thin legs extended by deer hooves. From this fabulous beast also emerges the crane, from the Taoist tradition. It is a symbol of longevity. Evoking the sweetness of living of wealthy classes, the scenes of gender were also very successful. A few lines were enough to draw the outlines of an idyllic life where the women quietly devised in the garden while the calligrapher was preoccupied with the education of a novice. But it was the floral ornaments that constituted the favorite theme of Chinese artists. From there on, the illustrators today apply themselves to reproduce to allow further studies. Restoring the scenery with a readability far superior to that of the photo, their work is a pure masterpiece. These traditional motifs, from the oldest Chinese religions, had no meaning for the Muslim inhabitants of Brunei. If porcelain was so successful, if it became the first product exported by China, and if it finally conquered the whole world, it was simply because it was beautiful. Five centuries later, in the dark depths where it was imprisoned, its eternal power of seduction operates once again. Work has resumed on the barge. And today, the dives have begun again. To catch up with the lost time during the week of the confetti, Michel decided to double the schedules. There is still a quarter of the site to search and only ten days of work. From now on, the barge resounds with an almost non-stop activity. It only ends when the fatigue has reason of the most tenacious energies. From the space they have been filling for two days, the divers are only extracting jars, to such an extent that these pieces, which seemed to have received all the secrets of the past, end up losing all mystery. Do they contain the reserve of drinking water and food intended for the crew, or a shipment of spices for the Brunei market? For now, no clue has allowed us to determine the content. The question is suddenly raised when, among the jars of the last basket, some appear much heavier than the others. It's clear, they are really in each other. If they could transport them in jars, it would be incredible. Tightly in their shelter for five centuries, dozens of small porcelain cups are delivered intact to the hands of archaeologists, who are not at the end of their surprise. The next jar releases a collection of small grey bottles, probably intended to collect some precious liquids. Then there are thousands of glass beads, amalgamated over time, which probably awaited a jewelry merchant. From the belly of the last jar, finally appear 85 small pots of porcelain, some of which still have their covers. Michel, look, a complete one. It's beautiful, this jar. A jar like this, where we find continuous series of jars. The razor of discoveries also explains that, but it's really extraordinary for me. It's the box. The most surprising thing is that all these objects appear to have been loaded in the state, that is, empty of all content. Perhaps it was the order of a Merchant of Brunei who had imagined filling these jars with oil for the body and who brought these small pots from China to fill them with camphor and then sell them to the unity. The Brunei boom, in a way. The proof, once again, of an intense and perfectly organized trade, the concrete trace of a real maritime freight line linking Borneo to the rest of the Sea of ​​China. In the evening, at the Archaeological Laboratory, the unloading of the jars mobilizes all available arms. 1998, 1999 and 2000. These 2,000 jars, today packed at a glance in the hangars, curiously represent in volume the essence of the cargo of a multi-ship. To such an extent that they are suspected of being by their weight at the origin of the shipwreck. To such an extent, above all, that their number even questions a specialist as seasoned as Marie-France Dupoisa. The wreckage of that time, we do not know so much about it, so we are still amazed to see that there are so many jars. Why did the ship carry such a large quantity of jars? A hypothesis, little by little, fades away. If jars are utilitarian objects closely associated with everyday life in all cultures of Southeast Asia, for the inhabitants of the Borneo forest, a powerful charm emanates from their material itself, the grain. People from the inside do not know how to produce grain. Everyone can make pottery, but a jar of grain must be cooked at 1,200 degrees. It is a special technique, and therefore for them it is a completely foreign object to their art. An unknown material, almost human-like rounded shapes, these jars, which landed by thousands on the island of Borneo, represented much more than simple containers for the inhabitants of the jungle. We know that all the populations of the interior greatly appreciated the jars, to the extent that these jars had a common use for some, and others had a ritual use. Some jars were worth 25-30 buff, to the extent that a Sarawak king in the late 19th century, when he left for England to keep his tribal leaders calm, took the jars as hostages, which were more precious than the life of a child with his tribal leaders. Thus, among the jars, some were promised to the brilliant destiny of objects of worship and legend. For the merchants of the time, they constituted a precious exchange currency with the inhabitants of the Borneo jungle, who paid in gold, camphor and precious wood. Perhaps the treasure of the jungle was there, in these jars, usually considered as usual objects, which were worth more than anything to the eyes of certain populations. All the visible part of the cargo has now been reassembled. There are still tons of vases that are methodically explored by the drill, for a few more pieces. On the laboratory side, it is a matter of dealing with the gigantic mass of accumulated material. In total, almost 15,000 inventories make this excavation the largest archaeological study ever carried out in the Sea of China. Sold at auction, this cargo would have brought several million francs. Saved from plunder, it represents today, much more than that, an inestimable treasure of knowledge. Michel Lourds won his bet. It's true that it's an amazing trajectory. It's a boat, it's sinking, there's a loading. It's a history, a maritime history. And then, five centuries later, it's masses of data that we'll be able to work on for years and years. If these disks were stolen, disappeared, destroyed, it's really the history of the boat that would disappear. Already now, however, this cargo demonstrates, beyond the myth that surrounds it for so long, the reality of this fabulous commercial traffic that made the wealth and grandeur of a civilization to exceptional development. Wider and more abundant than that of the Europeans at the same time. Michel and Jerzy are back in France and work on the information collected during the expedition. Did you find the D9 jar? The plans of the site, meticulously raised by the divers, are so many pieces that will allow to reconstruct a faithful sketch of the ship and its cargo at the time of the sinking. For the first time, thanks to the synthesis images, the site reveals itself in all its dimension. The arrangement of the remains on the ground shows at a glance that they are symmetrically distributed on both sides of a central axis corresponding to the keel of the boat. For archaeologists, it is now possible to deduce the distribution of the cargo in the hulls and to trace the contours of the ship. 30 meters long, 10 meters wide, for a cargo volume of 200 cubic meters, this ship must have been three times larger than a Portuguese caravel at the same time. Its perfectly distributed cargo in order to use the space as much as possible while preserving the global balance shows that the boat was loaded only once in a place where goods were stored from the four corners of the Sea of ​​China. Probably one of these ports, crossing the Asian maritime trade, which must have impressed the first European conquerors Imagine huge port cities, more populated than Venice, rumbling with some 80 different languages in which a volume of business far superior to that of Europe as a whole. Here, the world was definitely more vast, more developed and richer. The people who, by thousands, crossed the Sea of ​​China are still sailing in the imagination of men. The only trace of a world that has never disappeared, some of them still lie at the bottom of the water. The story it tells is just beginning to emerge. It is within the scope of the dream.