Tràng An is a Vietnamese government supported cultural
and ecological park development covering 2,500
hectares that is centred on an isolated massif on
the southern edge of the Song Hong delta in Ninh
Bình Province, north Vietnam (Fig. 1). The
archaeological investigation of Tràng An is being
led jointly by the Xuan Truong Construction
Corporation and the McDonald Institute for
Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge,
under the direction of the lead author. The
Corporation is creating an ecologically sensitive
development – the ‘Tràng An Tourism
Resort’ – within this karstic landscape,
which is also the subject of a planned application
to UNESCO for World Heritage Site status.
International involvement in this work has been at
the behest of Nguyêń Van Truong, the General
Director of Xuan Truong and at the invitation of the
Ninh Bình People's Committee. The research itself is
carried out under the guidance of Nguyêń Van Son,
the Tràng An Tourism Resort Project Manager. The
main focus of the May 2007 season was to undertake
excavations at the site of Hang Boi (the
‘Fortune-Teller's Cave’).