Today, the "Yangtze River Estuary No. 2" ancient ship archaeology and cultural relics protection project was officially launched in Shanghai, opening the mystery of the "Yangtze River Estuary No. 2" ancient ship that has been sealed for nearly 8 years since its discovery. This is the world's largest ancient ship archaeology and cultural relics protection project so far, and it is also one of the important symbols of China's underwater archaeology entering the world-class level. See
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Shanghai, since ancient times, has been the starting point and one of the important ports of the Maritime Silk Road, and has risen rapidly at the beginning of modern times, becoming a well-known international metropolis and a major port in the world.
The Yangtze River estuary in Shanghai is at the mouth of the Yangtze River's "golden waterway" and the central point 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.
According to the overall deployment of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Cultural Heritage has launched a census of underwater cultural heritage since 2011, and collected more than 150 clues to underwater cultural relics in the waters of the Yangtze River Estuary through land surveys and visits, access to literature and other means.
Schematic diagram of the location of the ancient ship "Yangtze River Estuary No. 2"
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In 2015, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics organized the Shanghai Municipal Cultural Relics Protection and Research Center to carry out a key underwater archaeological survey in the Chongming Hengsha waters of the Yangtze River Estuary, and found a relatively well-preserved iron shipwreck through sonar scanning and other technologies, with the archaeological number "Yangtze River Estuary No. 1". After underwater archaeological diving exploration, it was confirmed that the shipwreck was an iron warship of the Republic of China period.
Subsequently, archaeologists expanded the scope of surveying and exploration, and found another large and well-preserved wooden ancient shipwreck in the north of the shipwreck, the archaeological number is "Yangtze River Estuary No. 2". Since then, the prelude to decoding the "Yangtze River Estuary No. 2" ancient ship has been opened.
In order to further clarify the nature and age of the "Yangtze River Estuary No. 2" ancient ship, under the guidance of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, since 2016, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Cultural Heritage has taken the lead in organizing the Archaeological Research Center of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Shanghai Cultural Relics Protection Research Center, the Ningbo Base and Wuhan Base for the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage, the Shanghai Salvage Bureau of the Ministry of Transport, Shanghai University, the Fuzhou Municipal Cultural Relics and Archaeology Task Force and other domestic professional institutions to conduct underwater archaeological exploration and multidisciplinary research on the shipwreck site every year.
After more than 6 years of underwater archaeological investigation and exploration, the basic situation of the "Yangtze River Estuary No. 2" ancient ship has been preliminarily explored.
The ancient ship "Yangtze River Estuary No. 2" is a wooden sailing vessel, confirmed to be dated to the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty (1862-1875 AD), the water depth of the water is 8-10 meters, the hull is buried in 5.5 meters deep silt, and the horizontal left tilt is about 27 °. The length of the ancient ship is about 38.5 meters, the width of the ship is about 7.8 meters, and 31 cabins have been discovered. The upper part of the wreck has a complete structure, such as the pointed bow, pile, main mast, left and right sides, and upper deck.
Judging from the current survey situation, the ancient ship type is suspected to be a flat-bottomed sand boat widely used in Shanghai during the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Through the small-scale cleaning of 4 cabins before and after the selection, it was found that there were exquisite cultural relics such as Jingdezhen kiln porcelain that were neatly stacked in the cabin, and there were many types and quantities of cultural relics that had been completely or repaired.
In addition, a large number of cultural relics such as purple sand ware, hookah canisters from Vietnam, wooden bucket fragments, masts, large hardwood ship timber, iron anchors, brown cables, pulleys, metal drill bits, drill pipes and black minerals have been unearthed in and around the hull.
2019 out of the water part of the blue and white porcelain
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From July to September 2021, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Cultural Heritage once again organized underwater archaeology professional institutions to conduct underwater investigations on the ancient ship of "Yangtze River Estuary No. 2" and its surroundings, and cleaned up large-scale whole vessels such as Yuan Dynasty porcelain and 60 cm high complete vases of bean green glaze that were not found in previous surveys. In particular, some of the ancient ships have a water porcelain bottom book "Tongzhi Year System", which provides an important basis for the dating of ancient ships.
Tongzhi year-made green glaze cup - bottom
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The "Yangtze River Estuary No. 2" ancient ship is another milestone major discovery in China's underwater archaeology after the "Nanhai No. 1" shipwreck of the Song Dynasty in Guangdong Province discovered 35 years ago, and is one of the ancient wooden wrecks with the largest volume, the most complete preservation and the expected number of shipboard cultural relics found in China and even in the world.
Underwater archaeological surveys in recent years have shown that the ancient ship of the "Yangtze River Estuary No. 2" has been seriously washed by the current, especially with the change of the flow direction of the Yangtze River estuary, the riverbed has changed from siltation to rapid downward cutting, resulting in the acceleration of the ancient ship to expose the surface of the riverbed, and the hull is facing a serious safety threat. In order to prevent the "Yangtze River Estuary No. 2" ancient ship from being damaged by nature and man, experts recommend that the water be salvaged as soon as possible and moved to a fixed place for archaeological excavation, cultural relics protection, research and display and utilization.
Ancient ship side sweep sonar diagram
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This is also the second time after 15 years that the mainland has carried out overall salvage of underwater ancient ships. Previously, the "Nanhai No. 1" was salvaged as a whole in December 2007, causing a sensation in the world.
Due to the high sediment content and fast water flow speed at the mouth of the Yangtze River, the overall salvage method of "Nanhai No. 1" could not be used for the salvage of the underwater ship. The Shanghai Salvage Bureau of the Ministry of Transport, which is responsible for the salvage task of the ancient ship, organized a scientific research team to carry out joint research and decided to use the world's first technical solution - "arc beam non-contact cultural relics overall migration technology" to salvage the ancient ship.
Previously, the Shanghai Salvage Bureau had successfully completed the offshore equal proportion salvage test using the technology in January this year. At that time, 22 giant "arc beams" will be driven by the top-entry transmitter frame, forming a huge arc-shaped caisson at the bottom of the "Yangtze River Estuary No. 2" ancient ship, the caisson is 51 meters long, 19 meters wide and 9 meters high, which can wrap the "Yangtze River Mouth No. 2" ancient ship and its attached thick sediment and seawater "without leaking", plus the weight of the salvage equipment itself, the total weight of the caisson is nearly 10,000 tons.
This technology especially combines the processing technology of nuclear power arc beam, tunnel shield boring technology, immersed pipe tunnel docking technology, and the use of hydraulic synchronous lifting technology, integrated monitoring system and other current world's most advanced high-tech. At the same time, these technologies are also the first time to be applied to the field of cultural relics protection and archaeology.
The parties believe that the scheme can maximize the protection of the originality and integrity of underwater cultural heritage and ensure the safety of cultural relics.
After the caisson came out of the water, in order to smoothly escort the "Yangtze River Estuary No. 2" ancient ship to the Huangpu Riverside storage site, the Shanghai Salvage Bureau also tailored a "central opening" engineering ship for the caisson, and the caisson could be tightly embedded in its open middle. Subsequently, the engineering ship will "embrace" the ancient ship to the destination.
It is reported that the overall salvage and migration project of the "Yangtze River Estuary No. 2" ancient ship integrates the world's most advanced salvage technology, technical route and equipment manufacturing in one, forming the hardest core fifth-generation salvage process in history, which is unprecedented in the world today.
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.
The preservation of the "Yangtze River Estuary No. 2" ancient ship is extremely complete, and the number of cultural relics on board is large, which is enough to support the construction of an ancient ship museum with great world influence.
At present, the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government have officially decided to choose the site of yangpu Riverside Shanghai Shipyard, making full use of the two old docks and preserved historical buildings to build the "Yangtze River Estuary No. 2" Ancient Ship Museum.
In the future, the old dock, which is a historical building, will also be "gorgeously transformed" into an archaeological base for shipwrecks and an ancient ship museum. Archaeologists will gradually uncover the many unsolved mysteries of this ancient shipwreck of the Qing Dynasty here. At the same time, it will also be a living museum, which can simultaneously carry out archaeological excavations, cultural relics protection and display education, as well as archaeological and intangible cultural heritage living experiences, and scientific research on international underwater cultural heritage.
Carry out the "Yangtze River Estuary No. 2" ancient ship archaeology, protection and museum construction, which is the world's first archaeological excavation, overall migration, cultural relics protection and museum construction of archaeology and cultural relics protection project, which marks a major breakthrough in underwater archaeology on the mainland and contributes Chinese technology, Chinese experience and Chinese solutions to the world's underwater archaeology.
Source: Shangguan News, Look at news, Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism
Editor: Liu Minyue