On a sunny spring day in 1987, the tranquility of China's Yangjiang Sea was shattered by an unexpected discovery. At that time, the Guangdong Provincial Salvage Bureau cooperated with a British maritime exploration and salvage company to search for the East India Company freighter "Rheinberg", which sank in World War II, but accidentally found an ancient shipwreck carrying treasures. The discovery of this ship, named "Nanhai No. 1", is not only a major breakthrough in China's underwater archaeology, but also adds a strong stroke to the history of world archaeology. Dating from the Southern Song Dynasty, this shipwreck is a witness to China's ancient maritime Silk Road, and its abundance of cargo demonstrates the economic and trade prosperity of the Song Dynasty.
The sunlight shines through the sea surface and sprinkles on the damaged deck of the "Nanhai No. 1", and in the underwater light and shadow, the salvage team member Zhang Wei and the British explorer John Smith met underwater for the first time. Zhang Wei pointed to the porcelain scattered all over the place and said to John solemnly: "These are our national treasures, and we must treat them with care." John, frowning and not quite understanding this cautious attitude, replied, "We need to salvage them as soon as possible, time is money." ”
As time went on, it became increasingly difficult for the two teams to work together. The Chinese team emphasized scientific and normative archaeological methods, while the British team was anxious to reap direct economic benefits from the shipwreck. During a salvage operation, a huge steel grab dangled from a British ship and was brutally plunged into the wreck underwater, shattering a batch of porcelain. Zhang Wei angrily said to John: "You are destroying history!" ”
In a tense atmosphere, the Chinese salvage team decided to carry out the salvage operation independently. They gradually mastered the art of underwater archaeology and discovered a large number of precious cultural relics, including exquisite blue and white porcelain, gold and silver artifacts, and historical documents. With the deepening of the excavation work, a more complete picture of maritime trade in the Southern Song Dynasty gradually became clear.
The discovery of the shipwreck has attracted great attention at home and abroad. The Chinese government and the Guangdong Provincial Department of Archaeology have increased their investment, and the Maritime Silk Road Museum has been established. In 2007, after several years of hard work, Nanhai No. 1 was finally lifted out of the water in its entirety, becoming an important milestone in China's underwater archaeology.
In the years that followed, the exhibition of "Nanhai No. 1" attracted millions of visitors and scholars. Behind each of the cultural relics on display is a story that tells the thousand-year-old maritime history and cultural exchanges of the Chinese nation. With the advancement of technology, each archaeological excavation has led to new discoveries, making the Nanhai No. 1 project continue to be a valuable source of information for the study of maritime trade in the Song Dynasty.
The excavation of Nanhai No. 1 is not only a historical retrospective, but also a manifestation of cultural self-confidence. Every artifact that has been rediscovered from the depths of the water is like a messenger through time and space, proving to the world the prosperity and wisdom of ancient Chinese civilization. The story of this ancient ship is a respect for the past and an inspiration for the future. Through archaeological work like this, we are reminded that history needs to be treated with caution and that every excavation is a dialogue with the past. In the process of preserving and researching this precious heritage, we are actually contributing to the diversity and richness of the world's cultural heritage, while also preserving an even richer cultural heritage for future generations. In this way, we are not only reading history, but also writing history.