Ancient 'superyacht' found in Bac Ninh.

A chestnut trading ship?

The ancient catamaran was found in Ha Man ( Bac Ninh ), a low-lying riverside area in the Thai Binh River basin, where the inland waterway system is well-developed. When first excavated, the boat was called "ancient boat on the Dau River" or "ancient boat in Bac Ninh".

PHOTO: PHAM TRIEU

Recently, Dr. Nguyen Thi Mai Huong (Institute of Archaeology) published a study on the types of seeds found inside this boat. She sifted through the soil in the boat's hold and then classified the seeds obtained. According to Dr. Mai Huong, the seeds show a high degree of diversity. One reason is that the boat was in a flooded environment along the riverbank, which helped preserve the seeds and even pieces of wood well.

"The seeds of the sấu fruit are very distinct, and some fruits even have flesh on the outside. Besides that, there are also seeds of other fruits in the plum family. Sấu is now used in many other commercial products, as are apricots and plums," said Dr. Mai Huong at the 2025-2026 Archaeology Conference.

She also found seeds of many other native fruit trees. "There are quite a lot of neem seeds, Terminalia seeds, apple seeds, and other fruit seeds here. I didn't find any chestnuts, but I did find chestnut stalks, though not many. In addition, there are kapok tree thorns and Quisqualis indica seeds. Kapok is a native tropical humid tree, and Quisqualis indica is a medicinal herb. The gourd group also has many varieties, quite diverse but difficult to classify in detail…," Dr. Mai Huong said.