Asian Civilisations Museum

This guide to the Asian Civilisations Museum begins in 1998, when two fishermen diving for sea cucumbers off Belitung Island felt their hands close on something unexpected beneath the sand. It follows the Arab dhow they had found, stitched together with coconut-fibre rope, and the roughly sixty thousand pieces of Tang-dynasty cargo it was carrying when it went down around the year 826. You'll also hear how the Empress Place Building itself, once Singapore's colonial records office, became the museum that now holds them.