Two ancient boats unearthed when community digs pond to raise fish in Vietnam. See them
A community in northern Vietnam got to test their archaeological skills when a fish pond construction project turned into an excavation following the discovery of buried ancient boats.
Members of the Ha Man ward in Thuận Thành were renovating a more than 10,000-square-foot fish pond when wooden pieces emerged from the soil, according to a March 18 report from the Voice of Vietnam, a government-run radio broadcaster.
“During the process of raising fish, the pond often ran out of water, so I decided to hire an excavator to dig deep to keep the surface water in the pond. When the excavator dug about (2 feet) down, I discovered a wooden wall that ran dozens of meters long. Suspecting that there was an ancient boat underneath, I asked the excavator to stop digging and ran to report it to the local authorities,” Nguyen Van Chien, who organized the renovations, told VGT TV on March 19.
There were two boats buried about 6.5 feet apart, and both about 50 feet long, according to the Voice of Vietnam.
The boats are connected at the bow and are in relatively good condition and sturdy along the sides, archaeologists told Voice of Vietnam.
The boats are divided into compartments of varying depths, the deepest reaching about 5 feet, archaeologists told VGT TV.
They were discovered in a place where the Dau River once ran, and researchers believe they may have been used as cargo boats to move materials downriver, according to VGT TV.
The exact age of the boats is still under investigation, according to VGT TV, but because of the dugout style of the boat, researchers know it dates to early history, likely multiple centuries old.
“We asked workers to dig a layer of top soil and a trench next to the two boats to help drain the surface water. After draining the water, we will peel off each layer of soil from the boat compartments. We will clean the soil inside the boat and then clean the outside of the water to avoid internal pressure breaking the boat wall,” an official from the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Bac Ninh Province told VGT TV.
The boats were found less than a mile from the Luy Lâu Citadel, according to Voice of Vietnam, which was an ancient fortress that was the hub of political, economic and religious life in the first 10 centuries, A.D., Vietnam News reported.
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Additional artifacts found with the boats are being collected and analyzed, researchers told Voice of Vietnam.
Thuận Thành is in central Vietnam, about a 20-mile drive east from Hanoi.
Google Translate was used to translate the report from Voice of Vietnam.
This story was originally published March 24, 2025 at 11:30 AM with the headline "Two ancient boats unearthed when community digs pond to raise fish in Vietnam. See them."
