Things from 800 years ago (Song Dynasty) are considered antiques today, and they are very valuable. On December 21, 2007, a mysterious sunken ship in Hainan was salvaged, and a water release ceremony was held on site. This sunken ship has been at the bottom of the sea for more th

Things from 800 years ago ( Song Dynasty ) are considered antiques today, and they are very valuable.

On December 21, 2007, a mysterious sunken ship in Hainan was salvaged, and a water release ceremony was held on site. This sunken ship has been at the bottom of the sea for more than 800 years, but the hull has not rotted and has been completely preserved.

In order to salvage this sunken ship, it cost hundreds of millions of yuan. Judging from the results, it was worth the effort. The value of this ship is surprisingly great.

The salvaged sunken ship is called " Nanhai No. 1 ". More than 180,000 fine cultural relics were unearthed from the sunken ship. It is worth a lot of money, with a total price of up to 300 billion US dollars.

Everyone knows that antiques are very valuable, and good antiques are worth millions or even tens of millions. What on earth is on the sunken ship "Nanhai No. 1" that can be so valuable?

The accidental discovery of ancient shipwrecks

As we all know, Zheng He's voyages to the Western Seas were the pinnacle of large-scale ocean navigation in ancient China. Before that, the Song Dynasty was the peak of my country's folk navigation.

The developed maritime trade of the Song Dynasty set the highest record of overseas trade in ancient my country, and Hainan No. 1 demonstrated the technical level of single ships in the Song Dynasty.

The discovery of Hainan No. 1 is an unexpected surprise.

In 1987, an employee of the British Ocean Exploration Company saw a piece of news in the newspaper. It was about an East India ship that sank in the waters near Yangjiang, Guangdong, China, in the 18th century. There were many people on board. property.

After the East India ship sank in the waters of Yangjiang, Guangdong, some people on the ship were lucky enough to escape. They made the details of the sunken location public to the public.

Limited by the technology at the time, the ship could not be salvaged, so it remained near the sea area.

After learning the news, the British Ocean Exploration Team contacted the Chinese side and asked to join forces to salvage the East India merchant ship that sank near the waters of Yangjiang .

In August 1987, the Guangdong Salvage Bureau cooperated with the British Ocean Exploration Company to search near the Shanchuan Islands in the South China Sea of ​​Guangzhou.

As a result, the East India sunken ship that the British were looking for was not found. An ancient sunken ship buried 23 meters deep was found not far from the location. The Guangdong Salvage Bureau tried to salvage many cultural relics.

After these cultural relics were salvaged ashore, after research, it was determined that they were porcelain and some ancient coins from the Song Dynasty, which were of very high value.

The British were jealous and wanted to continue fishing, but were rejected by the Guangdong Salvage Bureau because the cooperation project between the two parties was to salvage East India shipwrecks. The ancient coins and porcelain were Chinese and they had no right to salvage them.

After careful identification by experts, it was determined that there was a merchant ship from the Song and Yuan Dynasties under the sea. At first, the ship was named " Chuanshan Islands Sea Area Song and Yuan Shipwreck", and later Mr. Yu Weichao named it "Nanhai No. 1" ".

At that time, my country's underwater archeology was in its infancy and there was no mature technology, so we could only suspend the salvage work of the "Song and Yuan Shipwrecks in the Chuanshan Islands Sea".

It is worth mentioning that in the autumn of 1985, a British man named Michelle Hatcher led a salvage team to recover hundreds of thousands of Qing Dynasty blue and white porcelain in the South my country Sea, and auctioned them in the Netherlands. The archaeological community has aroused heated discussions, which has also become a shame for the Chinese archaeological community.

This matter also attracted the attention of relevant departments in our country. The cultural relics and archeology community responded quickly to fill this scientific gap and vigorously develop underwater archeology.

In the winter of 1989, China History Museum cooperated with the Japanese Archaeological Research Institute to conduct an underwater survey of "Nanhai No. 1". This is the first underwater archaeological survey since the establishment of the China Underwater Archaeological Team, which is of great significance.

After expert identification, Nanhai No. 1 was a merchant ship in the early Southern Song Dynasty. It was a wooden ship that sank while transporting porcelain through the Maritime Silk Road and submerged in the waters near Yangjiang City, Guangdong Province.

Nanhai No. 1 was discovered in 1987. Due to the backward technology and insufficient funds at that time, research and survey on it were postponed.

Priceless shipwreck - Nanhai No. 1

There are more than 80,000 well-preserved Song Dynasty porcelain, daily necessities and other cultural relics on the Nanhai No. 1 sunken ship. Its value is immeasurable. It sank at a depth of only 23 meters underwater. The body was covered with nearly 2 meters of silt. The deck and stern of the ship had rotted away, but the hull was well preserved.

The ship is large and buried deep underwater, making it very difficult to salvage. my country’s underwater archeology started late and the salvage work of the project has been suspended.

In the past more than ten years, China's underwater archaeological team has developed rapidly and received financial support from the government. It has conducted many surveys of Nanhai No. 1 and formulated a detailed salvage plan. It was finally ready to start the salvage project in 2007. This merchant ship has sunk at the bottom of the sea for more than 800 years.

In January 2007, the archaeological team went to the shipwreck area to conduct the last survey before salvage. After that, the ship was salvaged for more than nine months.

As early as 2007, the archaeological team had conducted a small-scale excavation on Nanhai No. 1 and salvaged more than 4,000 cultural relics. Most of them were of extremely high value. They were unique treasures on the market. The quality was so high that they were truly rare.

On December 21, 2007, the Nanhai No. 1 sunken ship began to be hoisted. One day later, the ship successfully surfaced, and a water release ceremony was held on site.

Judging from the pictures, this merchant ship, which has been sunk at the bottom of the sea for more than 800 years, is mainly made of masson pine and fir . It is very well preserved and eye-opening. It is really a miracle in the archaeological world.

In order to protect the priceless Nanhai No. 1, after the salvage work was completed, it was quickly put into the Crystal Palace and properly handled by dedicated personnel.

According to official data, the length of the rescued Nanhai No. 1 is 22.1 meters, and the widest point of the ship is 9.35 meters. This value is compared to modern ships, and it is also a huge cargo ship. It was placed in the Song Dynasty more than 800 years ago. That's top-notch technology.

In order to salvage Nanhai No. 1, our country spent a huge amount of money. Not counting the various survey costs in the past 20 years, it only cost 230 million yuan to build the Crystal Palace of the Guangdong Maritime Silk Museum. In addition to the salvage funds of more than 70 million yuan, building the museum 160 million, which is hundreds of millions of dollars spent. Although

has paid a huge cost, it is all worth it and the rewards are quite generous.

First of all, Nanhai No. 1 is the largest, oldest, and most complete commercial ship among the ancient sunken ships discovered in the world.

The emergence of this ship provides the most complete and best specimen for the study of ancient Chinese shipbuilding technology, navigation technology research and the scientific laws of long-term preservation of wooden cultural relics.

Secondly, after salvaging Nanhai No. 1, valuable cultural relics were obtained.

From 2007 to 2019, archaeological experts worked day and night to identify and classify the salvaged cultural relics. After counting, they found a total of more than 180,000 cultural relics, including porcelain, coins, gold and silver, ironware, daily necessities, etc.

Based on the calculation of the number of these cultural relics combined with the market value, it is worth at least 300 billion US dollars internationally. This does not include the value of the hull. When converted into RMB, it is an even larger astronomical figure, at least 2 trillion RMB.

If you spend hundreds of millions of yuan to build a venue and pay for the salvage expenses, you can get a return of ten thousand times. This is undoubtedly a good thing with huge profits.

But we know that according to national regulations, cultural relics cannot be bought and sold. They are used for research, and their value is not comparable to money.

The successful salvage of Hainan No. 1 can prove that China pays more and more attention to cultural relics and knows its value. In the early years, our country lost a large number of cultural relics, which is a huge wealth. It is really a pity.

By salvaging Nanhai No. 1, the technology of our country's underwater archeology team and salvage team has also been comprehensively improved, and valuable experience has been learned for future underwater archeology and salvage work.