 The wreck held three main types of " wares " in the form of bowls : Changsha ware , the majority of the 60 @,@ 000 items , were originally packed in either straw cylinders or " Dusun " storage jars ; White @-@ ware , manufactured in the Ding kilns and including the earliest known intact <unk> blue and white dishes ; and Yue ware from Zhejiang Province . One Changsha bowl was inscribed with a date : " 16th day of the seventh month of the second year of the <unk> reign " , or 826 AD . This was later confirmed by radiocarbon dating of star anise found amongst the wreck . The cargo had a surprising variety of influences and markets , including Buddhist lotus symbols , motifs from Central Asia and Persia , Koranic inscriptions , and green @-@ splashed bowls popular in Iran . 
