The God Culture: 100 Lies About the Philippines: Lie #31 The Santa Cruz Junk is of Philippine Design

Welcome back to 100 lies the God Culture teaches about the Philippines. Today's lie concerns a the Santa Cruz Junk shipwreck which was found off the coast of Zambales. Timothy Jay Schwab says the ship is of Philippine design and is a Philippine Junk. 

Of course, that is pure junk.

In his book the Search for King Solomon's Treasure Tim writes:

The Search for King Solomon's Treasure, pgs. 142-143

However, there is a shipwreck of what appears to be a returning Philippine-built junk dating prior to the Spanish.

“Due to the extent of the vessel’s preservation, the archaeologists have also been able to understand how the ship was loaded and what kind of goods were stored in its different compartments.”

“...clear evidence that this ship was built in the Philippines.”

– Marine Archaeologist Franck Goddio

The renown French archaeologist says the evidence is clear this was built in the Philippines even according to the way the ship was loaded. Unfortunately, The National Museum of the Philippines suggested this as a Thai ship based largely on Thai artifacts found in the lower cargo holds and the construction both speculation easily challenged. However, that is the published consensus in “suggestion.” The Santa Cruz Junk discovered in 2001 off of Zambales is documented to the 1400s. 

In a now deleted comment on one of his videos Tim elaborates further claiming Marine Archaeologist Franck Goddio said the Santa Cruz is of Philippine design and a Philippine Junk.

A perfect example we cover in The Search For King Solomon's Treasure is the Junk ship found off the coast of Zambales dating to the 1400s. The French Marine Archaeologist who was brought in to study and assess the ship determined it was of Philippine design and a Philippine Junk. Then, the National Museum idiot got ahold of these obvious, proven findings wrapped in a bow as one of the greatest finds in Philippine history and published in a science journal that the ship was a Thai ship because he is part of those who think only shame belongs to the Philippines uneducated in the slightest of ancient history as are most.

None of that is true. The French Marine Archaeologist, Franck Goddio, never said the "Junk was of Philippine design and a Philippine Junk." That is pure junk. What he actually said is the Junk is of Chinese design and was likely built by a Chinese community in the Philippines because it was made of wood found in the Philippines and shipbuilding at that time was forbidden by the Ming Dynasty.

Vessel architecture, date and nature of unearthed material as well as shipwreck location (west of the island of Luzon), make it highly to be a “Chinese” wreck – in the broadest sense of the term, namely travelling to or from China. Certainly built outside of China – most likely in the Philippines – it was loaded with an eclectic cargo of goods from all the major production centres of the Celestial Empire, collected in the harbour warehouses of southern China, but also Siam, Vietnam and elsewhere, before travelling to their final markets .The junk was as “Chinese” as the ships in the western Mediterranean from the imperial era were “Roman”.

The junk was also “Chinese” in its construction, with a hull shaped as a piece of split bamboo, transverse bulkheads with a compartmented hold serving as frame, hull planks joined with iron nails but also, following the traditional hybrid Southern China Sea style, with the keel playing an essential structural role, and using timber of tropical origin. All the wood species used in the construction of the Santa Cruz are found in the Philippine archipelago and most of the islands in the South China Sea, but not in China. The merchants who had chartered it therefore could not belong to the provinces of Fujian and Guangdong, sailing on ships built in China. The essentially “Chinese” architecture seems to rule out the possibility that it was chartered by the peoples of South East Asia, very active on the eastern route between Melaka and Manila Bay (Reid, 1996: 34-35), but who sailed on craft built with local traditional techniques (Manguin, 2001).

Ultimately, given the assumed departure port of the ship, wrecked off the coast of Luzon, and the fact that its ceramics all date from a period when the prohibition to build ships and trade abroad was strictly applied by the Ming, it is highly unlikely that the ship and its charterers were of continental origin. It is much more likely that they belonged to a Chinese community located in the commercial towns of the archipelago. Certainly made in collaboration with local shipbuilders, the junk benefited from their particular expertise. Its construction is consistent with a “tendency to crossing, identified in shipbuilding technology evolution, with a new type of ship in archaeological sites from between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, probably coinciding with the increasing role played by Chinese trade and ‘merchant adventurers’ in Southeast Asia” (Manguin, 2001: 15). 

http://www.themua.org/collections/files/original/d983306f20edca8a8e0889272ba30e0b.pdf

The problem is Tim did not read the whole paper. He stopped at the part he liked and went no further. Tim's citation of Goddio is found on page 134 of his Sourcebook.

Tim appends a rather interesting note to this citation.

NOTE: Archaeologist Goddio above writes that there was "clear evidence that this ship was built in the Philippines." He could be wrong yet he continues to publish this 19 years later on his website indicating he did not see evidence which changed this perhaps. It leads us to question this. Using a bit of logic the conclusion already seems to have no basis. If Thai cargo was found in the lower cargo holds, it means they were the first stop on this very clear extensive International route of the Far East. Trade cargo from the nation of origin would not likely be found on the bottom as they would off-load it at every port from the furtherest point which sounds inefficient to us logically. It makes far more sense we are looking at a fully loaded ship returning to the Philippines in which it likely got caught in a storm and could not make it to shore. It is very odd that all the junks found in the Philippines are dismissed away as belonging to other countries and the Philippine history ignored by their own community of archaeologists it appears. It begs whether they have accurately attributed most of these in fact including the Lena Shoal. WE HAVE NOT EXAMINED THESE BUT THIS IS WORTH FURTHER RESEARCH. This is a discipline which typically sticks in it's paradigm and interprets only based on such paradigm. This is how they lost Ophir and cannot find it nor will they ever until one comes along outside of the box and thinks things through outside of such false paradigms. Good news, that someone is here. 

Tim says outright he has not even fully examined the case of the Santa Cruz or the Lena Shoal Junks. Then, after saying these archaeologists operate within a false paradigm and someone is needed to think outside of the box, with an air of pride he proclaims: 

Good news, that someone is here. 

How ridiculous.

What is needed is not someone who thinks outside the box but someone who can actually take the time to research everything related to his thesis and someone who actually reads through the papers he cites. Tim is not that person. He reads and quotes selectively and does not bother to thoroughly research anything. We see this time and again which is why I am convinced there is no God Culture team. 

The fact is French Marine Archaeologist, Franck Goddio says the Santa Cruz Junk is of Chinese design. Though it was likely built in the Philippines it was not built by natives but by a Chinese community located in the Philippines. It is not only more bad research but one more lie about the Philippines taught by Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture.