China salvaged a 800-year-old merchant boat

China has just recovered a 800-year-old merchant ship from the seabed of Hainan last Saturday. This merchant ship is filled with relics that can prove the existence of maritime trade between China and the West.

The ship was towed onto a barge in an iron cage as tall as a 3-storey building. It is made of wood, 30 meters high, containing thousands of goods in gold, silver and porcelain.

This Nam Hai 1 boat was discovered in 1987 in the coast of Guangdong province, burying under a 2-meter-thick alluvial layer at a depth of 30 meters. Nam Hai 1 will be transferred to a $ 20 million museum dedicated to it. The boat will be placed in a large tank, a ' glass palace ' with the same temperature and pressure as the sea floor where the boat is buried.

It is expected that the museum will be open by the end of next year. Visitors can observe the process of separating the ship from the silt through the windows on the sides of the tank. It may take years to complete this project.

Xinhua said archaeologists have discovered more than 4,000 containers of gold, silver, ceramics on board, about 6,000 dongs from the Song Dynasty (960 - 1279) after the construction of the child. this ship. This is the largest and most ancient merchant ship ever discovered in China. Archaeologists hope they will discover tens of thousands more relics.

(Photo: Theage.com.au)

Nam Hai Boat can provide evidence of a 'Sea Silk Road' between China's Guangdong and Fujian provinces with Southeast Asia, Africa and Europe, similar to the famous Silk Road. stretching from Central Asia to Europe.

Huang Zongwei, professor at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangdong, spoke on Xinhua: 'The Silk Road in the Sea, like the Ancient Silk Road, connects China to the south, west and central Asia. , Europe. It is also the East-West cultural bridge. But the evidence for the existence of this road is still very fragile. '