Nov 17, 2025

Preserved Joseon tax deliver raised from seabed

A 600-year-vintage shipment deliver from the early Joseon length has been raised from the seabed off South Korea`s west coast.

Known as Mado four, the deliver is the simplest surviving instance from the era, which sank close to Taean Island round 1430. The Joseon length turned into a dynastic nation of Korea that lasted for 505 years, from 1392 to 1897.

Mado four turned into first diagnosed in 2015, with archaeologists from the National Maritime Heritage Research Institute spending the following decade documenting and recuperating loads of artefacts, supplying new insights into the deliver`s very last journey.

Among those artefacts are sixty three timber shipment tags, every inscribed with the deliver`s departure factor and supposed vacation spot. The markings read “Naju Gwangheungchang,” indicating that the vessel had set sail from Naju in South Jeolla Province, wearing tribute grain tax certain for Gwangheungchang in Hanyang (present day-day Seoul`s Mapo District) – in which salaries for authorities officers had been administered.

Further affirmation of the deliver`s vacation spot turned into determined on 152 portions of blue-inexperienced Buncheong ware which undergo the characters “Naeseom.” This shows that the ceramics had been regulated items overseen with the aid of using the Naeseomsi, the country office.

Archaeologists advise that Mado four turned into a segok, a tax delivery vessel simplest formerly recognised approximately in historic documents. The surviving hull phase measures kind of 39 ft lengthy and sixteen ft wide.

Header Image Credit : Yonhap

Unlike in advance Goryeo and Silla deliver designs, Mado four carried  masts that furnished stepped forward pace and durability. Its stern turned into strengthened with horizontal timbers, whilst the hull planks had been mounted with timber pegs and later repaired with iron nails – the primary examples ever determined on a pre-present day Korean deliver.

Currently, the hull additives are present process desalination on the Taean Maritime Museum, in which decided on artefacts are already on public display.