The debut exhibition of the Belitung shipwreck, containing the largest collection of Tang dynasty artifacts found in one location, begins in Singapore.

The Belitung shipwreck is the wreck of an Arabian dhow that sank around 830 AD. The ship completed its outward journey from Arabia to China but sank on the return voyage from China, approximately 1.6 kilometres (1 mi) off the coast of Belitung Island, Indonesia. The reason the ship was south of the typical trade route when it sank remains unclear. Belitung lies southeast of the Singapore Strait, approximately 610 kilometres (380 mi) away, a secondary route that was more common for ships traveling between China and the Java Sea, which is south of Belitung Island.

The Tang dynasty, or the Tang Empire, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. Historians generally regard the Tang as a high point in Chinese civilisation, and a golden age of cosmopolitan culture. Tang territory, acquired through the military campaigns of its early rulers, rivalled that of the Han dynasty.

Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree of latitude north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bordering the Strait of Malacca to the west, the Singapore Strait to the south along with the Riau Islands in Indonesia, the South China Sea to the east, and the Straits of Johor along with the State of Johor in Malaysia to the north.