An 800-year-old merchant boat loaded with precious trading goods
anchored at a port Thursday morning after it was hoisted from the
bottom of the sea four days ago.
With the help of a crane, workers managed to drag the 5,000-ton
Nanhai (South China Sea) No. 1 aboard 16 huge air bags to a
temporary port at about 1:00?AM after more than three hours of
hard work overnight.
The 30-meter-long wooden vessel will continue to move to its
final residence of the "crystal palace" in a specially built museum
aboard 25 round air bags, each of which is 15 meters long and one
meter in diameter.
The ship is expected to arrive at the destination Thursday night
and on Friday, it will enter the designated glass pool, where the
water temperature, pressure and other environmental conditions are
the same as where the ship has lain on the sea bed.
The pool, containing seawater, is 64 meters long, 40 meters
wide, 23 meters high and about 12 meters in depth. It will be
sealed after the ship and the silt, taken out of water along with
the boat, are put in.
The well-preserved boat, containing an estimated 60,000 to
80,000 items of gold, silver, porcelain and copper coins, was
raised from about 30-meter depth of the South China Sea by a crane
on Saturday.
Officials said excavation will not be carried out immediately
and it may last a quite long time in an effort to better protect
underwater relics that have been soaked in the sea for such a long
time.
Guangdong has earmarked 150 million yuan (US$20.3 million) in
building a "Marine Silk Road Museum" to preserve the salvaged
ancient ship.
The new museum, run by the municipal government of Yang Jiang,
is expected to open to public by the end of next year and visitors
will be able watch the on-going excavation of the ship through
windows on two sides of the pool.
Discovered in the summer of 1987 off the coast near Yangjiang
city, Nanhai No.1 was recognized as one of the oldest and biggest
merchant boat sunk in the sea.
Archaeologists have recovered more than 4,000 containers made of
gold, silver and porcelain, as well as about 6,000 copper coins of
the Song Dynasty (960-1279), when the boat was built.
The merchant boat might confirm the existence of an ancient
maritime trade route linking China and the West.
(Xinhua News Agency December 27, 2007)
