On March 2, the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 Ancient Ship Archaeology and Cultural Relics Protection Project was officially launched in Shanghai. Photo by Zhang Hengwei
China's largest overall salvage and protection project for ancient shipwrecks, the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 Ancient Ship Archaeology and Cultural Relics Protection Project, was officially launched in Shanghai on the 2nd, lifting the mystery of the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 ancient ship that has been "dusted" for nearly 8 years since its discovery.
The underwater treasure of the "Golden Waterway"
Shanghai has been the starting point and one of the important ports of the Maritime Silk Road since ancient times; and the Yangtze River estuary in Shanghai is at the mouth of the Yangtze River "Golden Waterway" and the center of China's north-south coastline. Throughout the ages, on this busy route and in the complex waters, there have been countless underwater treasures and unsolved mysteries.
Since 2011, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Cultural Heritage has launched a census of underwater cultural heritage, collecting more than 150 clues of underwater cultural relics in the waters of the Yangtze River estuary; in 2015, a relatively well-preserved iron shipwreck was discovered through sonar sweeping and other technologies, with the archaeological number "Yangtze River Estuary No. 1", which was confirmed as an iron warship in the Republic of China period; subsequently, archaeologists expanded the scope of scanning and exploration, and found another large and well-preserved wooden ancient shipwreck in the north of the wreck, the archaeological number is "Yangtze River Estuary No. 2".
After nearly 6 years of underwater archaeological investigation and exploration, the yangtze River Estuary No. 2 ancient ship "true appearance has begun to appear": the ancient ship is a wooden sailing ship, confirmed to be dated to the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty (1862-1875 AD), the length of the wreck is about 38.5 meters, the width of the residue is about 7.8 meters, and it has been proved that there are 31 cabins; the pointed bow, pile, main mast, left and right sides, upper deck and other structures in the upper part of the shipwreck are complete, and the ship type is suspected to be a flat-bottomed sand boat widely used in Shanghai water transportation in the Ming and Qing dynasties.
In the small-scale cleaning of 4 of the cabins, archaeologists found exquisite cultural relics such as neatly stacked Jingdezhen kiln porcelain, and there were many kinds and large numbers of cultural relics that had been completely or repaired in the water; a large number of cultural relics such as purple sand ware and hookahs from Vietnam were also unearthed in and around the hull. From July to September 2021, underwater investigations cleaned up large-scale whole vessels such as Yuan Dynasty porcelain and 60 cm high bean green glaze blue and white vases that had not been found in previous surveys. In particular, the "Tongzhi Year System" section of the bottom book of some of the porcelain in the ancient ship provides an important basis for the dating of the ancient ship.
On March 2, the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 Ancient Ship Archaeology and Cultural Relics Protection Project was officially launched in Shanghai. Photo by Zhang Hengwei
It is larger than the "Nanhai No. 1"
The Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 ancient ship is another milestone major discovery in China's underwater archaeology after the discovery of the "Nanhai No. 1" shipwreck of the Song Dynasty in Guangdong Province 35 years ago. The "Nanhai No. 1" is about 24 meters long and has more than 180,000 cultural relics in the water; and the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 ancient ship is larger than the "Nanhai No. 1", which is one of the largest, most completely preserved, and largest number of shipboard cultural relics found in China and even in the world, and has extremely important historical, scientific and artistic value.
First, the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 ancient ship is a physical witness of modern Shanghai as a trade and shipping center in East Asia and even the world, filling an important gap in the discovery of large wooden shipwrecks in China's historical period, providing important empirical evidence for the study of the "Maritime Silk Road" and the "Golden Waterway" of the Yangtze River, and adding an important weight to the joint application for the "Maritime Silk Road".
Second, the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 ancient ship is well preserved and rich in cultural relics on board, which has very important scientific value for the study of shipbuilding history, science and technology history, maritime communication history, ceramic history, economic history and other disciplines in China and even the world.
Third, the underwater archaeological work of the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 ancient ship has made key technological breakthroughs and achievements in the environment of "zero visibility", which provides new methods and new ideas for the global underwater archaeological research in the complex muddy waters of the estuary coast, and sets a new benchmark for the world's muddy underwater archaeological technology.
"The no. 2 ancient ship at the mouth of the Yangtze River, which has been sleeping underwater for about 150 years, is about to surface and lift its mysterious veil. The great underwater archaeological discovery of Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 has extended the historical axis for us, enhanced the historical credibility, enriched the historical connotation, and activated the historical scene. Fang Shizhong, director of the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism and director of the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics, told reporters.
2019 out of the water part of the blue and white porcelain. Courtesy of Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism
The "hardcore" fifth-generation salvage process in history
Underwater archaeological surveys in recent years have shown that the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 ancient ship has been seriously washed by the current, accelerating the exposure to the surface of the riverbed, and the salvage and relocation work is imminent. In October 2021, the General Office of the State Council issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Protection of Cultural Relics and Scientific and Technological Innovation", which listed the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 ancient ship as a major project in China's underwater archaeology, which is the second time after 15 years that China has carried out an overall salvage of underwater ancient shipwrecks. Previously, the "Nanhai No. 1" was salvaged as a whole in December 2007, causing a sensation in the world.
The Shanghai Salvage Bureau of the Ministry of Transport, which is responsible for the salvage of the ancient ship, will use the world's unprecedented innovative scheme - "arc beam non-contact cultural relics overall migration technology" to salvage the ancient shipwreck: drive 22 giant "arc beams" with a top-entry transmitter frame, form a huge curved caisson at the bottom of the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 ancient ship, and wrap the ancient ship and its attached thick sediment and seawater "without leaking".
This technology especially combines the nuclear power arc beam processing technology, tunnel shield boring technology, immersed pipe tunnel docking process, and the use of hydraulic synchronous lifting technology, integrated monitoring system and other current world's most advanced high-tech, these technologies are also the first time applied to the field of cultural relics protection and archaeology, can be described as the history of the "hardest core" of the fifth generation of salvage technology. Previously, the Shanghai Salvage Bureau had successfully completed the offshore equal proportion salvage test using the technology in January this year.
According to the plan, the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 ancient ship is expected to complete the salvage and relocation task by the end of 2022.
At present, the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government have officially decided to choose the site of Yangpu Binjiang Shanghai Shipyard, making full use of the two old docks and preserved historical buildings to prepare for the construction of the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 Ancient Ship Museum. In the future, archaeologists will gradually unveil the many unsolved mysteries of this ancient shipwreck of the Qing Dynasty here. (End)