Unicom & Sotheby’s, which organized the auction, said that the money will be sent to Vietnam so that the country can continue to retrieve, study and display unsold objects.

According to archaeologists, most objects were made during the Qing dynasty from 1723 to 1736.

The sunken ship, en route from China to the Netherlands, caught on fire and sunk off the coast of Vietnam. Nearly 130,000 objects from the sunken ship have been retrieved by Vietnamese authorities.

The total amount of money collected from the auction was much higher than the original estimate of 1.4-2 million euros. Auction attendants came from many countries, mostly China, France, Russia and the US.