This photo taken on April 30, 2010 shows ancient gold handle of a dagger with an Arabic inscription is displayed together with other gold jewelries and coins, garnet stones on a shell and other precious items at a showroom in south Jakarta. The ancient treasure, worth an estimated $80 million, was found in a ship that sank off Indonesia 1,000 years ago. The treasure is up for sale again, the head of the excavation team said on March 5, 2012. (AFP Photo)
Ancient treasure worth an estimated $80 million dollars (Rp 733.9 billion) which was found in a ship that sank off Indonesia 1,000 years ago is up for sale again, the head of the excavation team said Monday.
The “Cirebon treasure” was discovered in a wreck off the port of Cirebon on Indonesia’s Java island and contains about 250,000 precious objects, including crystal, pearls and gold.
“(The haul) is certainly the largest ever found in Southeast Asia in terms of both quality and quantity,” Luc Heymans, the Belgian director of Cosmix Underwater Research Ltd., the Dubai-based firm that excavated the find, told AFP in an email.
The treasure reflects on Indonesian historic ties with China. Even now millions of tourists travel across two countries. In 2010, 469,365 Chinese visited Indonesia.