The Japan Coast Guard released photographs Thursday of a box of high-quality cigarettes and a bag of candy, both bearing hankul characters, retrieved from the sea off Kyushu where an unidentified ship sank last month after a fierce firefight with coast guard vessels.

The cigarette box bears characters that read "ryeo kwa dam bae," or "filter-tipped cigarettes," and the name of the factory where it was manufactured, according to the coast guard.

The first syllable, "ryeo," would be different in South Korea, "yeo," and therefore require a different hankul, the officials said.