Believe it or not, archeologists have located the sites of 2,000
ships that sank in China's territorial waters during the heyday of
its marine trade.
China was a major maritime power between the 10th and 16th
centuries, and the great exploits of Zheng He give an idea of Ming
Dynasty's (1368-1644) might on the sea.
The 2,000 wreckages won't be the last to be found, because State
Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) Director Shan Jixiang
says many more are waiting to be located.
Archeologists and other experts are now trying to find the
sunken treasures in the Grand Canal, and their number can be "big",
Shan says.
Work on the 1,700-km-long canal linking Beijing with Hangzhou
began in the 5th century BC. So deft were the engineers of the
times, and so farsighted was their vision that the canal is in use
even today.
The discovery of the Song Dynasty (960-1279) ship Nanhai-I,
which was finally hauled from South China Sea on Saturday, prompted
the government to draft a plan to protect its relics lying under
water, Shan says. In fact, the work on the plan has already
begun.
The discoveries have created the need for regulations and
actions, too. "Now that everyone has realized the value of the
cultural relics lying under water, it has become all the more
urgent to keep thieves and smugglers away from them."
If the country wants to better protect these priceless objects,
it has to join the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) Convention on the Protection of Underwater
Cultural Heritage, says Zhang Wei, director of National Museum of
China's underwater archaeological center.
China has just two instruments to protect its underwater
heritage: the Cultural Heritage Protection Law, promulgated in 1981
and amended in 2003, and the Regulation on the Protection of
Underwater Heritage, announced by the State Council in 1989.
Most of the relics looted from the seas and rivers often make
their way abroad, and smugglers have been particularly rampant over
the last two years, Shan says.
Art collectors and dealers across the world have become
especially interested in China's underwater heritage since 2005,
when about 15,000 relics, mainly 300-year-old blue-and-white
porcelain, were found on a 13.5-m sunken ship off the coast of
Fujian Province.
(China Daily December 26, 2007)