A merchant boat loaded with porcelain that sank off the south
China coast 800 years ago was raised on Friday, one day earlier
than planned.
The salvage operation kicked off at 9 a.m. when a huge crane
began lifting a steel basket containing the 30-meter-long vessel,
dubbed the Nanhai No. 1, or "South China Sea No. 1".
Two hours later the wooden wreck breached the surface from
30-meter depth of water and was placed onto a waiting barge.
Archaeologists launched an operation in May to build a steel
basket as large as a basketball field and as tall as a three-storey
building around the boat to raise the wreck and the surrounding
silt.
The basket, which has turned from orange to brown during seven
months in water, together with its content weighed more than 3,000
tons.
"Soaked in the sea, the boat has become very fragile," explained
Wu Jiancheng, head of the archaeological project.
Local officials originally planned to hoist the boat on Saturday
but changed their minds due to favourable weather conditions on
Friday.
The boat will be placed in a glass pool at a specially built
museum named the "crystal palace" where the water temperature,
pressure and other environmental conditions are the same as where
the ship has lain on the sea bed.
The pool is 64 meters long, 40 meters wide and 23 meters high.
It contains seawater and is about 12 meters in depth.
"It will be sealed after the ship and the silt are put in," said
Feng Shaowen, head of the cultural bureau of Yangjiang City,
Guangdong Province.
Though the salvage part has been done, Feng said, the excavation
work will not be carried out immediately and it may last a quite
long time.
"We want to make it sure before carrying out any excavation,"
said Feng."We have little experience of excavating underwater
relics to follow and it will be a new challenge for us to protect
the culture relics, such as wooden ware, which have stayed in the
sea for a long time."
Guangdong has earmarked 150 million yuan (20.3 million U.S.
dollars) to build 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, said Feng.
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.
Wu estimated that there were still 60,000 to 80,000 items on
board.
Recovery of the boat would be significant in the study of porcelain
in ancient China, according to Wei Jun, vice director of the
submarine archaeology research center of Guangdong Research
Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology.
He noted that the Song Dynasty was the first peak of porcelain
industry in Chinese history, when the products were exported to
east, south and west Asia, as well as the east coast of Africa, and
the use of porcelain was seen as a symbol of social status.
The boat, buried in two-meter-thick silt, has archaeological
value as well, Wei said.
"It is a sample of how wooden cultural relics could be well
preserved for a long period," he said.
According to Huang Zongwei, professor with the Guangdong-based
Sun Yat-Sen University, the boat was a proof of the "Marine Silk
Road".
As early as 2,000 years ago, ancient Chinese traders began
taking china, silk and cloth textiles and other commodities to
foreign countries along the trading route. It started from ports at
today's Guangdong and Fujian provinces to countries in southeast
Asia, Africa and Europe.
"The 'Marine Silk Road', like the ancient Silk Road that
connected China with south, west and central Asia and Europe, is
also a bridge connecting eastern and western cultures," Huang said,
"but evidence for existence of the path was rare."
Judging from the position of the sunken boat, whose head was
pointing southwest, experts deduced that it could be heading to
west Asia or the Middle East.
(Xinhua News Agency December 22, 2007)
