 Michael Flecker , the chief excavating archaeologist at the site , compared the wrecked ship to three types of the same period and concluded that the wreck most resembled " lashed @-@ lug " ships of south @-@ east Asia — first used in the 5th century . He said that fully stitched boats were found from the African coast , Oman , in the Red Sea , on the Indian coast , and as far as the Maldives . He notes that Roman references by Procopius in the 6th century tell of boats with planks stitched together in a similar fashion used in " Indian Seas " . Though Arabian ships of this type have not been found before , they are mentioned in text including the late @-@ Tang Ling biao lu yi ( " Strange Things Noted in the South " ) . According to John Guy , curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art , the book " describes the ships of foreign merchants as being stitched together with the fiber of coir @-@ palms and having their seams caulked rather than using iron nails to secure their planks " . 
