The Sadan Island shipwreck: An eighteenth-century AD merchantman off the Red Sea coast of Egypt

In 1995-8 the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA), in cooperation with the Supreme Council of Antiquities for Egypt (SCA), excavated an Ottoman pe riod wreck at Sadana Island on the Red Sea coast of Egypt. The 50m long hul l represents a form of wooden shipbuilding hitherto undocumented for this p eriod. The finds included a large and diverse collection of Qing Dynasty Ch inese export porcelain designed for an Islamic market, as well as coffee, a romatic resin, spices, earthenware water jars, green glass bottles and othe r remains of cargo dating to about 1765, from a time of changing trade patt erns and renewed Ottoman interest in controlling Red Sea commerce. The loca tion of the site demonstrates that Chinese porcelain and other goods were b eing transported by sea north of Jeddah, the port of Mecca, a point traditi onally seen as the terminus of the sea trade from the Indian Ocean during t his time. Commercial interaction on a global scale was common in the later eighteenth century, but this wreck represents a part of the world about whi ch little is known; the origins of the ship are obscure, but her crew was M uslim. The project is also important as the first major shipwreck excavatio n to be undertaken in Egyptian waters.