China is to start removing treasures from its greatest ever marine archeological discovery, six years after the wreck was raised from the seabed in a giant metal box, reports said on Saturday.
The wooden Nanhai 1 sank near Yangjiang in Guangdong Province during the Southern Song Dynasty of 1127 to 1279, with an estimated 60,000 to 80,000 items on board.
For centuries, it was preserved under the sea by a thick covering of silt, until it was discovered accidentally by a British-Chinese expedition looking for a completely different vessel, the Rhynsburg from the Dutch East India Company.
The Nanhai 1 was salvaged in 2007, and its cargo of porcelain, lacquerware and gold objects is “more than enough to stuff a provincial-level museum,” the Southern Metropolis Daily said.
Since its recovery, the merchant ship has been kept in the sealed-off steel container in a specially built glass-walled exhibition hall, the report said.
The vessel’s “full excavation” was officially launched on Thursday and authorities expect that they will retrieve all its relics in the next three to four years, it said, citing Tong Mingkang (童明康), a deputy head of the Chinese State Administration of Cultural Heritage.
Archeologists plan to spend the first year clearing away the silt covering the ship and removing the most valuable items from the hold, the paper said.
The excavation site will be open to the public one day every week, Tong was quoted as saying.
More than 6,000 relics have previously been recovered, the report said.
The vessel’s exact route is not known, but it is believed to have been plying the so-called “Marine Silk Road” which linked China with India, the Middle East and even Africa in ancient times.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in