The golden ways of globalization: Jewels from the Nanhai no. 1 shipwreck and the Indian Ocean World

In 1987, the British company Maritime Exploration & Recoveries PLC (MER PLC) serendipitously discovered the Nanhai No. 1 Shipwreck, a Southern Song dynasty, Chinese merchant vessel, on the seabed near Hailing Island, Guangdong. Salvaged in 2007 along with approximately 160,000 artifacts, Chinese authorities conducted excavations in the purpose-built Maritime Silk Route Museum. Among the most intriguing finds is a collection of gold jewellery, whose origins defy simple attribution. A stylistic analysis spanning China, South and Southeast Asia, and Western Asia is crucial to understanding this unique material. This study contributes to scholarship by exploring gold trade, cultural interactions, and premodern globalization through the lens of material culture’s cultural biography.