This study focuses on the significance of the Chinese ceramic wares in general, and celadons in particular, which were recovered between 1976 and 1984 from a sunken Chinese ship of the fourteenth century in Sinan near the south-western sea coast of Korea. The primary concern of the study is to provide an accurate dating of the sunken ship and thus of the recovered ceramic vessels, and then to relate the latter with the ceramic materials excavated in China and Japan.

As background to the ceramic trade in East Asia, Chapter Two deals with the history of the maritime trade in the Yuan period, touching upon changes in official policy towards foreign trade, major seaports, the office of merchant shipping, export and import items and trading ships.

Chapter Three introduces the Sinan excavation and the variety of the recovered ceramic vessels with a special concern with the types and decorative motifs of the celadon wares. Comparisons with materials excavated in China and Japan are made in order to trace possible sites of production for the materials excavated from the ship and to understand their relationship with those excavated in China and Japan.

Finally, the problem of dating is discussed in Chapter Six based on the inscribed wooden tags from the cargo and on stylistic comparison with the datable ceramic materials excavated in China. The study concludes that the Sinan ship sank in the sixth month of 1323, and the majority of the recovered ceramics were produced in the first quarter of the fourteenth century in two major production areas in Longquanxian and Zhejiang province.