During the Qing Dynasty, a flat-bottomed sand boat full of porcelain had an accident at the mouth of the Yangtze River and was silent under the water for about 150 years.
On March 2, 2022, the "Yangtze River Estuary No. 2" ancient ship archaeology and cultural relics protection project was officially launched in Shanghai, and this mysterious ancient ship is about to return to the world with its full warehouse of cultural relics and treasures.
Fifteen years ago, the overall salvage of the "South China Sea No. 1" once caused a sensation in the world. According to the survey, the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 ancient ship is larger than the "Nanhai No. 1", is currently one of the largest, most complete preservation, and huge number of shipboard cultural relics found in China and even in the world, and is a precious cultural heritage, with extremely important historical, scientific and artistic value.
At the launching ceremony, Fang Shizhong, director of the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism and director of the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Cultural Heritage, said that the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 ancient ship "is a physical witness of modern Shanghai as an east Asian and even world trade and shipping center and an important node of the 'Belt and Road'." ”
Li Qun, vice minister of culture and tourism and director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, said: "The Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 Ancient Ship Archaeology and Cultural Relics Protection Project is the world's first archaeological and cultural relics protection project implemented simultaneously by archaeological excavation, overall migration, cultural relics protection and museum construction, 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." “
The Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 ancient ship is expected to be salvaged and relocated to Yangpu Riverside by the end of 2022, when the former site of the Shanghai Shipyard will be built as the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 Ancient Ship Museum using two old docks and historical buildings.
Archaeological finds
Since ancient times, Shanghai 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.
In 2011, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Cultural Heritage launched the census of underwater cultural heritage, 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 materials. However, in this water where visibility is almost zero, the exploration of underwater cultural heritage is like finding a needle in a haystack.
For a long time, the muddy water environment has been the bottleneck of the development of underwater archaeology in China, especially in the waters of the Yangtze River Estuary in Shanghai. To this end, archaeologists and scientific and technological workers have carried out cross-border cooperation, developed "underwater imaging devices for muddy waters", developed "key technologies and applications of robot underwater archaeological equipment", and used unmanned boats and other marine geophysical surveying equipment to carry out joint underwater surveys of the waters of the Yangtze River estuary.
Kung Fu pays off. In 2015, when the Shanghai Municipal Research Center for Cultural Relics Protection and Research carried out a key underwater archaeological survey in the Chongming Hengsha waters of the Yangtze River Estuary, it discovered 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, with the archaeological number "Yangtze River Estuary No. 2". Since then, the story of the no. 2 ancient ship at the mouth of the Yangtze River has gradually been presented to the world.
Underwater probing
Since 2016, major professional archaeological institutions in China have conducted underwater archaeological exploration and multidisciplinary research on the shipwreck site every year. After six years of efforts, the basic situation of the No. 2 ancient ship at the mouth of the Yangtze River has been preliminarily discovered.
The Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 ancient ship 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, and the hull is buried in 5.5 meters deep silt. 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.
Archaeologists selected 4 of the cabins before and after the small cleanup, and found that there were exquisite cultural relics such as Neatly stacked Jingdezhen kiln porcelain in the cabins. 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. 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, 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.
The Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 ancient ship is another milestone major discovery in China's underwater archaeology after the discovery of the Guangdong Song Dynasty Nanhai No. 1 shipwreck discovered 35 years ago. The length of the Nanhai No. 1 is about 24 meters, and there are more than 180,000 cultural relics in the water. The Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 ancient ship is larger than the Nanhai No. 1, and is one of the ancient wooden shipwrecks with the largest volume, the most complete preservation and a huge number of cultural relics found in China and even in the world, and is a precious cultural heritage with extremely important historical, scientific and artistic value.
Salvage migration
Underwater archaeological surveys in recent years have shown that the No. 2 ancient ship at the mouth of the Yangtze River 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 silt to rapid downward cutting, resulting in the acceleration of the ancient ship to expose the surface of the riverbed, and the hull of the ship is facing a serious safety threat.
In order to prevent the natural and man-made destruction of the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 ancient ship, experts suggest that it is necessary to salvage the water as soon as possible and move it into a fixed place for archaeological excavation, cultural relics protection, research and display and utilization.
At present, there are three main ways of salvage of global underwater shipwreck archaeology: one is to extract the cultural relics on the ship and dismantle and salvage the shipwreck; the second is to use the cofferdam to pump water for archaeological excavation and then salvage the shipwreck; the third is the special caisson to salvage the shipwreck, cultural relics and the surrounding seawater and sediment in accordance with the original state of one-time suspension and transportation.
Due to the extremely high turbidity of the estuary of the Yangtze River, the underwater visibility is almost zero, and the working time of the flat tide is very short, it is impossible to complete the scientific underwater archaeological mapping and photography operations; the time and cost of underwater archaeology and the construction of the cofferdam are huge, and the archaeology after the cofferdam will obstruct the waterway for a long time. Overall salvage, on the other hand, can migrate shipwrecks in the shortest time, at the lowest cost, and with the greatest retention of historical information. Therefore, after fully listening to the opinions of experts, assessing the risks faced by the shipwreck, comprehensively analyzing the three archaeological and protection methods, and reporting to the Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Government and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Cultural Heritage decided to adopt the overall salvage method of the No. 2 ancient ship at the mouth of the Yangtze River to protect this precious underwater cultural heritage to the greatest extent. At present, the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 ancient ship has been included in China's major underwater archaeology projects.
Due to the high sediment content and fast water flow speed at the mouth of the Yangtze River, the salvage of the wrecked ship could not use the salvage method of the "Nanhai No. 1" segmented caisson - that is, the caisson was inserted into the wreck, and the bottom was dug and hoisted through the steel beam. To this end, 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 solution - "arc beam non-contact cultural relics overall migration technology" to salvage the ancient shipwreck. 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 Estuary No. 2 ancient ship and its attached thick sediment and seawater "dripping without leaking", plus the weight of the salvage equipment itself, the total weight of the caisson is nearly 10,000 tons.
After the caisson came out of the water, in order to successfully 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 yangtze River estuary No. 2 ancient ship to the destination. 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.
Protect exploitation
The yangtze River Estuary No. 2 ancient ship is extremely well preserved 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 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, 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 be a living museum that 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.
In the 14th Five-Year Plan for The National Economic and Social Development of Shanghai and the Outline of Long-term Goals for 2035 released in January 2021, the No. 2 Ancient Ship Museum at the Mouth of the Yangtze River has been listed as a major public cultural and sports facility construction project in Shanghai in the "14th Five-Year Plan".