The downtown area is a surprise of ancient shipwrecks
A torrential rain rushed out of the downtown site with many ceramic fragments, leading archaeologists to dig up a huge shipwreck that had been sunk for 600 years.
The ship is full of precious cultural relics, worth billions of yuan.
However, what puzzles experts is that the wreck was found in a bustling area in the inland area, how did such a huge shipwreck come here?
And why did it sink?
Torrential rain rushed out of the underground ancient shipwreck
On September 17, 2010, an international trade center was being built in a downtown area of Heze City, Shandong Province.
The site was moving quickly, but a sudden rainstorm interrupted the workers' work plans. It was hard to wait until the rainstorm stopped, but the construction site was filled with a lot of water, and the workers had to take the time to pump out the water before starting work.
Little by little, the water disappeared from the construction site, and what appeared in front of the workers was many strange ceramic fragments. Just as they were going to go forward to examine them carefully, a worker not far away suddenly shouted, drawing everyone's attention to it.
It turned out that the worker had found a perfect clay pot in the mud on the ground.
Driven by curiosity, the workers continued to dig down, only to quickly unearth a porcelain vase with a dragon pattern and some tattered and decaying wooden planks.
The management of the construction site rushed to hear the news, and when they saw the ceramic fragments and wooden planks on the ground, they "giggled" in their hearts, suspecting that there was an ancient tomb under the construction site.
The torrential rain rushed out of the ground to break out of the ceramic fragments quickly spread, plus the construction site was originally located in the downtown area, there were shopping malls around, more and more people came to watch, and some people ran to the construction site to randomly pick up the ceramic fragments washed out by the rainstorm.
Seeing the situation, the construction site management was worried that someone would touch the fish in muddy waters, so they quickly notified the police, and then the police contacted the local cultural relics bureau staff, and soon the local cultural relics bureau sent a professional archaeological team to conduct on-site investigation.
When the archaeologists arrived at the site, the first thing they saw was a plank of wood standing there. They didn't know what it was, but they thought that an ancient tomb had been found on the site, and this piece of wood, which was obviously quite old, was part of the tomb.
But soon after the excavations began, the archaeologists present realized something was wrong.
There was a lot of silt on the site, and the archaeologists cleaned up and searched little by little in such a muddy environment, and found a lot of porcelain and pottery from the silt, as well as some copper coins and gold tools.
When they saw these cultural relics, everyone was very happy, but at this moment, some archaeologists wondered: "Why is there not a single tomb brick?" ”
As soon as these words came out, others immediately realized that something was wrong. Ancient tombs generally have thick rammed earth or tomb bricks, and archaeologists dug up soft soil, which is different from rammed earth, and no tomb bricks have been found for a long time.
And no matter what period this is an ancient tomb, who is the owner of the tomb, how to look at this ancient tomb does not have the specification outline that an ancient tomb should have. Isn't there an ancient tomb buried under this site?
With this doubt in mind, the archaeologists continued to excavate. Later, they dug out many of the rims of the jars from the dirt, which appeared to be some large vessels, and archaeologists modified and deduced from these findings that this was not an ancient tomb, but a ruins.
But then, that speculation was also overturned by new discoveries, as the archaeologists dug out a 4-meter-long plank out of the silt, which was apparently not used on a coffin, but more like the top of an ancient ship.
Subsequently, on the south side of the wooden plank discovery site, the archaeologists dug up a wéi pole, which officially confirmed that there was indeed no tomb under the site, but a shipwreck.
But confirming this still did not reduce the doubts of the archaeologists. You know, Shandong Heze is an inland city, although this ancient shipwreck has not yet been excavated, but it can be judged that the whole ship is very long, not an ordinary small ship.
Why does such a big ship appear in an inland city?
Treasures worth billions
The excavation work on the construction site is still in full swing, and many citizens rushed to the scene and gathered around the site curiously watching the work of the archaeological team, and through the efforts of the archaeological team members, the entire shipwreck was excavated.
Only then was everyone surprised to find that the boat was even larger than expected, about 21 meters long, as long as two buses combined, and about 5 meters wide.
After the ship sank that year, due to the different preservation environment, one was hidden in the silt at the bottom of the water, and one was still washed by the current all day, and when the archaeologists excavated it, the side of the ancient shipwreck that was washed by the current has been basically decayed, and the bottom and parts hidden in the silt are still relatively well preserved.
The first parts to be revealed were the two cabins located at the stern, in addition to the bow, stern, and independent cabins, there were originally 10 small cabins on this shipwreck, and the size was not equal, about 1.3 meters to 1.8 meters, and the hull wood used in the whole ship was preliminarily determined to be cypress and qiū wood.
In the subsequent excavations, there are still surprises. The archaeologists first excavated some scattered artifacts in the cabin, including a pair of gold earrings.
A female archaeologist named Ma Jing found two red things wrapped in dirt in the dirt on the bow of the ship, and after cleaning, she was surprised to find that this was a pair of Shoushan stone Luohan statues of the descending dragon and the tiger, although it is old, the color on the Shoushan stone is still very bright, and the manners of the Luohan are also very exquisitely carved.
During the excavation of the 9th cabin, an artifact that surprised all the archaeologists appeared.
At that time, Ma Jing carefully opened a piece of dirt, and suddenly saw the shoulder of a porcelain bottle, although it was covered with dirt, most of the body was still hidden in the soil, and it was impossible to see whether it was complete, but the archaeology team member was still excited, because this porcelain bottle seemed to be blue and white porcelain.
After the discovery of this porcelain vase, the entire excavation work was suspended.
When Ma Jing excavated the entire porcelain vase and sorted it out, she found that it was a blue and white dragon pattern plum bottle with honeysuckle pattern and ruyi pattern on the shoulder, which was a typical Yuan Dynasty blue and white. The dragon pattern painted on the abdomen is small, the neck is thin, the body is slender, the movement is very strong, and the image is fierce, which is also a typical Yuan Dynasty dragon pattern.
For any archaeologist, if a piece of blue and white porcelain has been unearthed in his career, then this life is worth it.
It should be known that the level of craftsmanship and ornamental value of this precious porcelain is extremely high, there are about 400 pieces in the world, but as the production area of blue and white porcelain, there are only about 200 pieces of blue and white porcelain in China.
On this shipwreck, Ma Jing spent an afternoon digging out 3 pieces of Yuan Dynasty blue and white porcelain.
In addition to the blue and white dragon pattern plum bottle, Ma Jing also found a blue and white fish algae pattern high foot bowl, as well as a blue and white wearing flower phoenix pattern plate. However, it is a pity that in addition to the well-preserved plum bottle, the other two are more or less short.
In 2005, an auction house in London auctioned a large blue and white jar from the Yuan Dynasty, which sold for 230 million yuan. Experts judged that Ma Jing found that the intact blue and white dragon pattern plum bottle was conservatively estimated to be worth 150 million, and its value would continue to rise in the future.
In addition to the 3 pieces of Yuan Qinghua found by Ma Jing, other archaeologists have also successively discovered qingbai glazed porcelain, Longquan blue glaze, as well as a large number of precious porcelains such as ge glaze porcelain, jun glaze porcelain and white ground black flower porcelain, each of which is worth a lot, and the value of all of them has reached billions, which amazes all archaeologists.
Now that the excavations have come to an end, the next question that archaeologists should explore is why this ancient shipwreck appeared here.
Solve the mystery of shipwrecks
In order to determine the age, the archaeologists consulted professors in the field of Chinese ships, hoping that the other party could judge the age of the ship by the shape of the hull.
However, after the inspection, the professor regrettably told them that the evolution of ships was very slow, sometimes not changing for a hundred years, and that instead of studying the ship's form, it was better to go directly to the items carried on the shipwreck.
However, although the blue and white porcelain of the Yuan Dynasty has been excavated, this does not mean that the era of the sinking of the ancient shipwreck is the Yuan Dynasty, after all, the ancients will also like and collect a large number of antiques like people now. Moreover, at that time, the archaeologists also found a large number of copper coins from different dynasties earlier than the Yuan Dynasty on this shipwreck, including the copper coins of the Tang Dynasty.
Curiously, none of these copper coins belonged to the Yuan Dynasty, and the latest copper coin was also from the Song Dynasty.
Fortunately, experienced archaeologists soon came forward to explain that when the age of coins and artifacts in the excavated cultural relics conflicted, it was generally necessary to break the age of the artifacts, as far as the ancient shipwreck was concerned, it was through the Yuan Qinghua to determine the generation, so archaeologists finally concluded that the ship was sunk during the Yuan Dynasty.
Although the expert in the field of ships could not accurately judge the age, he could judge that it came from the north according to the morphological characteristics of the ship, which was a canal boat.
The area of Heze was rich in water systems during the Yuan Dynasty, and there was once a river called the Zhao Wang River. Today, the Location of the ZhaoWang River is 2 kilometers away from the shipwreck, which may have been gradually diverted by the Silt of the Riverbed over the past 600 years.
In fact, when they realized that they had dug the shipwreck, in order to protect the ancient shipwreck, the archaeologists specially invited the old shipbuilders of the professional shipyard to let them investigate first.
These experienced old shipwrights saw at a glance that there were traces of impact on the right front of the wreck's bow, and believed that the wreck had collided with other ships when it was sailing.
In addition, although they had no archaeological experience, they could recognize the respective purposes of the cabins on the shipwreck based on the previous shipbuilding practices. According to the location of the cabin where the blue and white dragon pattern plum bottle was located, the old shipwright speculated that the plum bottle might be a daily necessity or a collectible.
Archaeologists have combined the views of the old shipwright and believe that the shipwreck may belong to a large family in the Yuan Dynasty, most likely an official eunuch family.
They may have been planning to move by boat with their family's collection, but when they came to the Zhao Wang River, they accidentally collided with other boats, the hull cracked and deformed, and the boats hit the sandbar in the river, and finally sank. The people on board may have retreated in time and were not in danger, but after the ship sank, they had no way to salvage it.
The utensils sank underwater with the boat and survived under the protection of river sand for more than 600 years until they were discovered in the downtown area.
Even if this wreck is a small corner of the long river of history, the rich and in-depth research of later generations is still shallow, but it is enough to give us a brief glimpse of the customs and customs of that era more than 600 years ago.