On May 21, located on the northwestern continental slope of the South China Sea, No. Having completed the first archaeological survey of 1 shipwreck, the research vessel “Exploration No. 1” anchored in Sanya with the manned diver “Deep Sea Warrior”.
The National Cultural Heritage Administration and the Hainan Provincial People's Government and other relevant departments announced on May 21 in Sanya, Hainan province, the great progress made recently in China's deep-sea archaeological work.
In October 2022, two ancient shipwrecks were discovered at a depth of about 500 meters on the northwestern continental slope of the South China Sea. The underwater permanent survey base point of the shipwreck was laid on May 20 this year, and a preliminary search, examination and image recording was carried out, which opened a new chapter in China's deep-sea archeology.
One of the shipwrecks in question is shipwreck No. 1 on the northwest continental slope of the South China Sea, while a stack of cultural relics suspected to have been separated by cabins is found, according to Yan Yalin, Director of the Archeology Department of the National Cultural Heritage Administration.
While the shipwreck, whose maximum height exceeds 3 meters, mainly contains porcelain-made cultural remains, it is estimated that there are more than 10 thousand artifacts scattered over an area of 100 thousand square meters.
The shipwreck discovered at the other site on the northwestern continental slope of the South China Sea is called Shipwreck 2. Similar in size to ship No. 1, this shipwreck contains many neatly arranged logs, while much of the nastiness appears to have gone through simple processing. Preliminary research confirms that this laden ship is an ancient ship that provided shipping services from abroad to China, and dates back to the Hongzhi period of the Ming Dynasty (1488-1505).
Yan Yalin said, “The shipwrecks are relatively well preserved, the number of cultural remains is large, the period is relatively clear, and this is a great discovery of deep-sea archeology in China, as well as a great archaeological discovery of the world, it has an important historical, scientific and artistic value. ” said.
Tang Wei, director of the National Cultural Heritage Administration's archaeological research center, stated that one of the shipwrecks mainly carried porcelain for export and the other wooden products imported from abroad. Pointing out that the periods to which the two ancient ships belonged were similar and that there was a distance of 10 nautical miles between them, Tang Wei said that he discovered for the first time the ancient ships sailing and returning in the same sea region of China, and that this success reflects the importance of this route and the prosperity of the period. He stated that it sheds light on and contributes to the in-depth examination of the two-way flow of the Maritime Silk Road.
With the approval of the National Cultural Heritage Administration, in strict accordance with the working procedures of the National Cultural Heritage Administration Archaeological Research Center and the Institute of Deep Sea Science and Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the South China Sea Museum of China (Hainan) underwater archeology in about one year, in three phases 1 and It will carry out the archaeological survey of the shipwreck area number 2.