A maritime archaeological expedition in the Malacca Strait has recovered a cache of early Dong Son-style bronze drums featuring intricate, never-before-seen engravings of banana leaves and tropical storm clouds. The drums were found at a depth of 30 meters, arranged in a deliberate circle on a submerged limestone platform that once served as a coastal ritual site before sea levels rose.
Scholars at the National University of Singapore suggest that these drums were used in a proto-historic maritime festival designed to "summon" the monsoon winds that powered ancient trade routes. Unlike typical drums used for warfare or funerary rites, the banana leaf motif is specifically linked to fertility and the cooling rains of the tropical season, marking this as the earliest physical evidence of wind-focused festivals in the Southeast Asian archipelago.