Centuries-old ship to resurface from muddy grave
A rendering of the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 Ancient Vessel
Positioning piles for the salvage
Some parts of the sunken vessel
After more than two centuries buried underwater in mud in the Yangtze River Estuary – and eight years of China's largest such restoration project – a Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) sand-trading boat will soon reveal its mysteries, authorities said on Friday.
The Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 Ancient Vessel is a wooden sailing boat built around 1862-1875 during the reign of Emperor Tongzhi. Some scattered cultural relics including clay teapots, rudders and an iron anchor have been salvaged to prevent them from being lost, the Shanghai Administration of Culture and Tourism said.
After 35 days of searching, the exact location and buried depth of the vessel have been confirmed.
Laying a pile for the salvage
A recovered and restored clay teapot
The Fen Li, the ship used to salvage the sunken vessel, arrives in Shanghai on Friday.
The salvage ship Fen Li has reached Shanghai and four piles for positioning have been laid down by the Da Li, another salvage ship, in the final stage before salvage.
The vessel is buried in 5.5 meters of sludge, 8-10 meters below the surface of the water.
Surveys show the vessel is 38.1 meters long and 9.9 meters wide. It has 31 cabins. The upper deck and mainmasts appear to be intact.
The ship is probably a sand vessel with a flat bottom, widely used for water transportation in Shanghai during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing dynasties, according to Zhai Yang, deputy director of the Shanghai Cultural Heritage Protection and Research Center.
In 2015, an underwater archaeological investigation in the Hengsha area of Shanghai's Chongming Island detected a sunken iron vessel via sonar scanning technology.
The iron warship was named the Yangtze River Estuary No. 1 Ancient Vessel. As archaeologists expanded the scanning scope, a wooden vessel was found north of the warship and it was named Yangtze River Estuary No. 2.
A part of the salvaged ship
The historic anchor
Priceless archaeological treasures, including porcelain from the kilns of Jingdezhen, a world-famous porcelain capital in Jiangxi Province, have been found in four cabins.
A large number of cultural relics such as Yixing zisha (purple clay) wares, hookah cans made in Vietnam, wooden buckets, ship masts and iron anchors have been unearthed near the ship.
Between July and September last year, major finds including porcelain works of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and a 60-centimeter-high blue-and-white porcelain vase, were found.
Archaeological work started almost immediately, due to the fragility of the work.
Officials decided to salvage the whole ship after evaluating three options.
"There are still many mysteries behind the ship, such as its name, where it was built, and what was its destination, to which we hope to have answers," said Zhai.
"We will solve these one by one – but it may take a long time."
The Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 Ancient Vessel is another milestone China's underwater archeology history after the Nanhai No. 1 cargo ship from the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279).
Nanhai No. 1 is widely believed as the largest and best-preserved Song Dynasty ocean-going merchant trade ship.
