The sunken ship that has been sleeping on the bottom of the sea for 800 years without decay is the first shipwreck in the world's archaeological history that has been salvaged in its entirety. Salvage cost 150 million.
Shipwrecks carrying cultural relics worth more than US$300 billion, etc...
These names are all about the same shipwreck.
Various descriptions make this shipwreck more mysterious.
So, what kind of story is behind it?
Figure 1
This is the " Nanhai No. 1 " we are going to talk about today.
The wrong ship was salvaged
When it came to 1987, an employee of the British Ocean Exploration Company saw a piece of news in an old newspaper.
said that in the 18th century, there was a East India Company ship that crashed and sank in the waters near Yangjiang, Guangdong, China. The ship was loaded with 6 boxes of silver.
Since someone successfully escaped after the ship sank, the location of the shipwreck was recorded in more detail.
So, the British Ocean Exploration Company found the Chinese side, hoping to jointly salvage the sunken ship.
In August, the Guangzhou Salvage Bureau ( Guangzhou Salvage Bureau predecessor) signed a contract with the British Ocean Exploration Company to find the sunken ship in accordance with the instructions of the superior.
After the British salvage ship reached the wreck area, it used sonar to determine several suspicious locations.
Then use grab to start sampling.
is sampled several times,In one of the locations, some porcelain and ancient Chinese coins were actually caught.
Figure 2
The British wanted to continue the arrest, but they were stopped by the Guangzhou Salvage Bureau.
They said that the contract was for the sunken ship of the East India Company. This ship is obviously Chinese, and you cannot continue to salvage it.
At the request of China, the salvage stopped.
The salvaged cultural relics were handed over to the Guangdong Provincial Cultural Relics Department.
After cleaning, there are more than 200 pieces, including porcelain during the Song and Yuan dynasties, "Shaoxing Tongbao" and " Zhenghe Tongbao " coins, and a 1.7-meter gilded belt.
Preliminarily, it can be determined that this is a ship from the Song and Yuan dynasties.
In 1989, archaeologists from China and Japan reached an agreement to jointly conduct an underwater survey of the sunken ship.
In November of that year, the archaeological teams of the two countries came to the Yangjiang sea area for five days of underwater exploration.
At that time, the wind was relatively strong and the visibility of the sea water was also very low. Even with the use of sonar and diver exploration methods, the sunken ship could not be found.
Figure 3 The gold-plated belt
Only a piece of white porcelain bowl was salvaged.
By comparing with the porcelain salvaged in the previous two years, it is determined that it is the same batch.
It was during this operation that the leader of the Sino-Japanese joint investigation team and archaeological expert Yu Weichao gave the sunken ship the well-known name-"Nanhai No. 1".
Japan, for various reasons,Stopped cooperation.
The salvage was declared a failure.
Due to China's weak underwater archaeological capabilities at that time, the salvage was suspended.
this stop is 12 years.
In 2001, Zhang Wei, director of the Center for Underwater Archaeology of the National Museum, received 1.2 million RMB support from an underwater archaeological institution in Hong Kong.
The superior department allocated another 800,000 yuan, and Zhang Wei led an archaeological team to the Yangjiang waters again in April of that year.
Figure 4 Underwater archaeological excavation process
It took more than a month to determine the specific location of the sunken ship.
In the spring of 2002, the archaeological team conducted a trial excavation of the "Nanhai No. 1" shipwreck.
The excavation area was only 4 square meters, and more than 4,000 ceramics were unearthed, as well as cultural relics such as ironware, bronzes, and ancient coins.
With extensive media reports, "Nanhai No. 1" has gradually become known to the world.
From the discovery of "Nanhai No. 1" in 1987, to 2003, "Nanhai No. 1" became widely known.
For more than ten years, the Yangjiang Frontier Defense Detachment has been patrolling to protect the sunken ship.
When surrounding fishermen drive boats to fish in this area, the border guard patrol boat will come.
Tell the fishermen that there are torpedoes and mines left by foreign invaders. They are very dangerous, so leave quickly.
Figure 5 Coins unearthed in Nanhai No. 1
It is under the protection of such “lie” that “Nanhai No. 1” has not been damaged by fishermen's trawling in more than ten years.
How to salvage
Proof of trial excavation in 2002,"Nanhai No. 1" has a large number of cultural relics and has extremely high archaeological value.
The next thing to consider is how to salvage.
Traditional underwater archaeology involves this kind of shipwreck.
Generally, the exploratory is first arranged, and then one area is followed by one area, one layer after another, and after the cultural relics are salvaged, the sunken ship is salvaged.
This solution has mature technology and is not difficult.
However, in the face of "South China Sea No. 1", this method will not work.
First of all, the visibility of the sea in this sea area is extremely low. You can't see your fingers at a distance of 20 centimeters from the bottom of the sea, which seriously affects the archaeological work.
Figure 6 Excavation site
Second, the hull is large, and it is covered by silt at a depth of 1 to 2 meters, which requires too much work.
Thirdly, due to the influence of monsoon and climate, there are only three or four months of subsea operation time each year.
It is possible that one year of suitable working time has passed without waiting for the silt to be cleaned up.
Wait until next year, the hull is covered with silt again.
After many meetings and discussions, the archaeologists put forward the "overall salvage" plan. The basic steps are as follows:
1. Identify the specific location of the sunken ship and lay down the positioning piles;
2. Use a giant steel caisson ( Caisson), covering the sunken ship;
3. Hollow out the sand on both sides;
4. Thread steel beams at the bottom of the steel caisson; Put it on the full submersible barge;
6. The full submersible barge transports the caisson to the designated place.
does not sound complicated, but this scheme has been questioned by some people.
Figure 7 Lacquerware and cinnabar on the ship
They believe that the "Nanhai No. 1" is 30 meters long, 10 meters wide, and more than 4 meters high.
How can there be a lifting equipment that can lift such a large caisson in China!
They were right. With the technology at the time, the "South China Sea No. 1" could not be salvaged. They had to wait.
This is another four years.
In March 2007, the opportunity finally arrived.
The Guangzhou Salvage Bureau, which cost 600 million yuan and took more than two years to build Asia's first large-scale crane engineering ship, "Huatianlong" was officially completed and put into production.
The maximum lifting capacity has reached 4000 tons.
Salvage costing 150 million
At 10 o'clock in the morning on April 18, 2007, the "Hua Tianlong" was ready to be in place, and the salvage officially began.
This is the first time in the world to salvage a large ancient shipwreck as a whole, so many problems were encountered in the salvage process.
First, the wind and waves were so strong that the positioning piles could not be driven. The project team switched to an underwater positioning system and directly placed the caisson.
Figure 8 The "Huatianlong" lifting engineering vessel that "South China Sea No. 1" was salvaged in the past
Soon after the sinking of the caisson, it encountered a high-hardness mud layer. The silt around the caisson was excavated and allowed the caisson to sink.
This step took two and a half months.
Then when the steel beam was inserted at the bottom of the caisson, a 15-meter-long steel beam passed through here.
should be aligned with the hole on the other side, and the error should be controlled within 1 cm.
As a result, when the first steel beam crossed the seabed, it was bent by the hard mud layer and did not align with the hole on the other side. .
finally passed the high-pressure water gun to solve this problem.
All 36 steel beams were finally worn.
Of course, the specific solution is more complicated. This has become a confidential technology of the Guangdong Salvage Bureau.
On the morning of December 22, 2007, the "Nanhai No. 1" was lifted out of the "Huatianlong" slowly.
Figure 9 Panorama of the shipwreck Photographed in 2014
was transported by the semi-submersible barge to its new home- Yangjiang City "Maritime Silk Road Museum".
The salvage lasted 9 months, cost 150 million yuan, and 150 million yuan to build a museum.
Some people have questions. Is it worth spending 300 million to salvage a sunken ship?
First of all, the value of "Nanhai One" cannot be measured by money.
Although the goods it carries are indeed very valuable.
Secondly, this successful salvage has fully demonstrated the strong strength of my country's salvage technology and construction machinery manufacturing technology, which is a good publicity.
Again, this salvage is a huge advancement in our country's underwater archaeology, and successfully wiped out a shame in our archaeological community.
Why must it be salvaged?
This shame has to start in 1984.
Figure 10 At the auction site, Hatcher (left) and the porcelain salvaged from the sinking of the Goldmarsson (also known as Nanjing)
That year, British explorer Mike Hatcher, in the South China Sea Salvaged an ancient sunken ship,Acquired nearly a million pieces of porcelain from the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty.
As the saying goes, "the rare thing is precious", and this is also the saying in the collectors' circles.
In order to sell the salvaged porcelain at a good price, he smashed more than 600,000 pieces in one go.
and completely destroyed the remains of the sunken ship. After
, Mike Hatcher claimed that these porcelains were salvaged from the high seas and auctioned in the Netherlands in 1986.
After learning the news, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage wanted to stop it.
However, there is no relevant international legal basis, and there is no relevant marine cultural relics law in China.
can only collect 30,000 US dollars and send ceramic experts Geng Baochang and Feng Xianming to the Netherlands.
I hope to photograph some porcelain and come back for research.
Figure 11 Porcelain and gold ingots from the water outlet of the Goldmarssen, the cover of the auction catalogue
The two arrived at Amsterdam only to find that it was impossible to buy a decent piece of porcelain for $30,000.
spent three days at the auction, and they didn't even have a chance to raise a placard.
In the end, he could only return to his country in despair.
This auction has deeply stung Chinese archaeologists, and this is the story of the later salvage of "Nanhai No. 1" at all costs.
Speaking of objects on the ship
In 2014, archaeologists began to excavate the "Nanhai No. 1" sunken ship.
The wreck hull is basically intact. After measurement, the remaining length is about 23 meters, the width is nearly 10 meters, and the maximum cabin depth is 2.7 meters.
The shipwreck retains its original hull structure and is the best-preserved ancient shipwreck found in my country so far.
The reason why it has not rotted for 800 years is that the silt on the seabed isolates oxygen and slows down the decay of wood.
Figure 12 "South China Sea No. 1" archaeological site
Second, the masson pine from southern China was used for shipbuilding, which was originally a kind of hard wood.
There is a saying among Guangdong folks that "the blister is a thousand-year-old pine, and the wind blows a thousand-year-old cedar".
In 2019, the cargo in the sunken ship has basically been cleaned up.
A total of more than 180,000 cultural relics were unearthed, including porcelain and ironware.
There are also gold and silverware, bronzeware, glassware, bamboo and wood lacquerware, and human bones.
The shipwreck era was the early Southern Song Dynasty.
Maritime Silk Road, it seems that the commodities on this trade route are mainly silk.
In fact, during the Tang and Song Dynasties, porcelain was already the largest commodity on this route.
The porcelain in "Nanhai No. 1" has some sharp edges and corners, and some large porcelain bowls have flared mouths, which have obvious Arabic style.
Figure 13
Explain that this should be an export porcelain customized by foreign merchants.
These porcelains are mainly from kilns in the three provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian, and they are of various types.
According to estimates of the international selling price of porcelain similar to unearthed ceramics, the total value of the porcelain on board is 300 billion US dollars, which is 2 trillion yuan! The number of
is of course amazing, but to discourage everyone, this is a cultural relic and it is impossible to buy or sell it.
"Nanhai No. 1" unearthed tens of thousands of ancient coins, with a huge time span.There was the first five baht in the Han Dynasty.
The latest is Jianyan Yuanbao from the early Southern Song Dynasty.
What is the use of bringing so many copper coins abroad? Of course it is universal.
According to historical books, the five baht money in the Han Dynasty circulated for more than 700 years, and was abolished in the early Tang Dynasty.
Figure 14
Judging from this excavation, the Song Dynasty is still in use, and the circulation time of the five baht money has been extended by several hundred years.
As for the Song Dynasty copper coins, it is also worth talking about.
The copper coins of the Song Dynasty are more well-made than other neighboring countries, and the currency value is stable, so they are very popular.
Song Dynasty did business with Japan, Southeast Asia, and Arab countries, you can directly use Song Qian.
At that time, Song Qian had become an international currency, similar to the status of the US dollar today.
What is even more exaggerated is that many countries have received Song Qian and put them in the national treasury for storage and no longer use them for circulation.
The massive outflow of copper coins even caused a money shortage in the Song Dynasty, leading to fewer and fewer copper coins on the market.
In the end, the country even stipulated that if the copper money brought out of the country exceeded its usual value, the leader would be put to death.
Figure 15
However, due to the excessive purchasing power of Song Qian, the situation of private smuggling of Song Qian has been repeatedly prohibited.
Maybe it is because the Song money is not enough, the five baht money can continue to circulate.
From here, it can be inferred that the shipowner's taking a large amount of copper money out of the country may also be "scalping foreign exchange."
The mystery of "Nanhai No. 1"
So, where does "Nanhai No. 1" go from China?
More than half of the porcelain excavated on the ship came from Cizao kilns and Dehua kilns in Quanzhou, Fujian.
Due to the inconvenient transportation in ancient times, the merchant ships were always nearby when they distributed their cargo.
So this ship is likely to depart from Quanzhou Citong Port. As for the destination, it is still a mystery.
Why did "Nanhai One" sink?
This ship is lying flat on the bottom of the sea. It shouldn't have encountered wind and waves. In that case, the ship would just capsize.
Figure 16 Hollow gold bracelet inlaid with precious stones
The hull has no traces of large fractures, indicating that it should not be a collision.
If it hits a rock, one end of the ship will be inserted into the bottom of the sea. From here, it may be overloaded.
Who is the owner of the ship?
Some gold jewelry, such as gold belts, gold bracelets, and gold rings, were found on "South China Sea One".
During the Southern Song Dynasty, some foreign businessmen living in China liked gold and silver jewelry.
So the owner of this ship is probably a foreigner.
The skull of cobra was also found on the ship, indicating that there were Indians or Arabs on board.
Concluding remarks
Today's "South China Sea One" lies quietly in the "Crystal Palace", waiting for us to discover more secrets about it.
As the number one in many fields, "Nanhai One" carries too much.
Salvaging it is not only an archaeological event, but also a cultural event.
Figure 17 Nanhai No. 1 Museum
Judging from the widespread concern of the public, it is even more a social event.
Someone once compared "Nanhai No.1" to Dunhuang on the sea, compared with Dunhuang's Buddhist scripture caves that were plundered by foreigners in those years.At that time, no one cared about the situation in China.
The salvage and excavation of "Nanhai No. 1" showed us the Chinese people's care and attention to the national cultural heritage.
This is the change brought about by the progress of civilization.
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