Species identification and tree-ring dating of wood boxes excavated from the Shinan shipwreck, Korea

Abstract

The Shinan shipwreck, which was excavated in the southwestern sea of Korea in the 1970s, was a Chinese trade ship from the Yuan Dynasty, traveling from China to Japan in the early 14th century (A.D. 1323). Anatomical examination indicated that the wood boxes carrying thousands of Chinese porcelain pieces on the Shinan shipwreck were made of either Cryptomeria japonica or Cunninghamia spp. The former grows in South China and Japan, and the latter in China and Taiwan. Therefore, we could not confine the origin of the wood to a single country by wood identification. However, we could date 21 wood boxes using tree-ring chronologies of C. japonica from western Japan. The outermost ring with sapwood was dated to A.D. 1316. The results from the tree-ring dating indicated that the wood boxes on the Shinan shipwreck were of Japanese rather than Chinese origin.