Taiwan Today

An excavation project on an island off the tip of northern Taiwan is shedding light on a little-known piece of history.

On a morning last May, Ellen Hsieh (謝艾倫‬) was headed to a meeting on Heping Island off the coast of the northern port city of Keelung. As she passed by a construction site, something on the ground suddenly caught her eye. Mixed in with the churned up dirt were shell and artifact fragments, which Hsieh—an assistant professor from the Institute of Anthropology (IA) at National Tsing Hua University based in northern Taiwan’s Hsinchu City—correctly identified as prehistoric. The findings were reported to the relevant authorities, who immediately halted the construction project and undertook a survey of the site.

Heping is of great significance to scholars because it was inhabited by Austronesian people for millennia before becoming an early point of contact with Western seafarers arriving in Taiwan. Prior to Hsieh’s accidental discovery, archaeological digs of sites built on by Spanish settlers were already underway. The land rescued from under the excavators has since been incorporated into ongoing research on the islet under the umbrella of the Ministry of Culture’s (MOC) Regeneration of Historic Sites Project (RHSP), launched in 2017 and targeting over 30 heritage locations across Taiwan.

According to Kuo Li-ya (郭麗雅‬), who heads the Cultural Heritage Section in the Keelung City Government’s Cultural Affairs Bureau, RHSP’s work is not simply about uncovering and restoring old structures, but also about expanding awareness of local history. “We seek to help people reconnect with the past and foster pride in Keelung’s heritage,” she said.

The bureau supervises projects on Keelung’s coastlines along the harbor and Heping, where Spanish merchants arrived in 1626 during the Age of Discovery in an attempt to compete with Dutch traders who had settled on the island two years earlier. In 1642, the Dutch East India Company drove its European rival from Taiwan and became the sole colonial power before being expelled two decades later by a force of exiles from the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) court.

New Direction

Much of Taiwan’s historical research to date has focused on the Dutch settlement of what is now Anping District in the southern city of Tainan. For this reason, historian Kaim Ang (翁佳音‬) believes the 16-year Spanish rule has been overshadowed by the more prominent Dutch presence when it comes to exploring the island’s varied history. The Heping project will hopefully shed more light on the land’s other international influences including those from China, Japan and Spain, said the research fellow from the Institute of Taiwan History at Taipei City-headquartered Academia Sinica, the country’s foremost research institution.

Initial excavation on Heping began with the remnants of Fort San Salvador during Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945) by researchers from Taipei Imperial University, today’s National Taiwan University (NTU). Archaeological research resumed in the early 2010s with a project led by Academia Sinica scholar Tsang Cheng-hwa (臧振華), now head of the IA. The initiative aimed to retrieve the remaining groundwork of Spanish structures with assistance from Spanish researchers at NTU. Among the team’s more remarkable finds was the foundation of a church, complete with human remains, near the Spanish garrison ruins.

First-stage digging results from the church-cemetery site have been preserved for further classification and study as well as use in public education programs. Fragile materials such as human skeletons were sent to IA headquarters in Hsinchu to ensure their storage in a controlled environment, while other findings are kept at local workshops.

According to Hsieh, much of the excavation and preservation work was conducted with future exhibition needs in mind. Vestiges of Spanish- and Japanese-era structures can be displayed side by side to illuminate the traces of successive rule by various powers, she said. With archaeological discoveries drawing increasing interest from local communities, a number of guided tours have also been organized by the IA team for teachers and pupils from elementary schools and other interested visitors.

Rich Tapestry

Kuo hopes the archaeological efforts on Heping will help lay the groundwork for an exhibition center showcasing key features of what she calls “northern Taiwan’s gateway to the world.” The country already has two such public facilities, the MOC-administered Museum of Archaeology that opened last October at Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan and the National Museum of Prehistory established in 2002 in the southeastern county of Taitung. Due to the relatively limited space, the Heping edition could not rival the 2.44-hectare Tainan museum in scale but would form an integral part of a conservation network spanning the whole island, Kuo said.

Hsieh sees the project’s importance in a different light. In addition to expanding the scope of historical knowledge to cover more of Taiwan’s territory, she believes the project will enhance understanding of the land’s past. “History isn’t a random combination of fragments,” the anthropologist said. “The Heping findings substantially expand our understanding of Keelung’s development all the way back to the prehistoric age.”

This broader framework also gives greater insight into the various peoples who have called Taiwan home throughout the course of time. Indigenous and migratory groups have interacted in ways that have had a substantial impact on contemporary geographic, economic, political and social conditions. Historical analysis should therefore not be limited to the oppressive relationship between colonizers and local people, Hsieh said.

Ang, too, welcomes the exciting possibilities the Heping program offers, especially for researchers in fields such as anthropology, archaeology and indigenous studies. With every new discovery, scholars can bring together the disparate strands of Taiwan’s history and weave them into a richer whole, he said. Ang argues that only through contact with tangible objects unearthed at sites like Heping can academics and ordinary people alike absorb the full picture of history. “Seeing these items helps foster a collective memory of society and nation.” 

Write to Pat Gao at cjkao@mofa.gov.tw