A nice archaeological find in China
From the New Zealand
Stuff website:
Chinese find shipwreck laden with Ming porcelain
Chinese archaeologists have found an ancient sunken ship in the South China Sea laden with Ming Dynasty porcelain, the Xinhua news agency said.
Divers used satellite navigation equipment to find the vessel, dubbed South China Sea II, which is about 17 to 18 metres long and lying at a depth of 20 metres.
"A preliminary study of the sunken ship shows it may have sunk 400 years ago after striking a reef," archaeologist Dr Wei Jun was quoted as saying.
The ship came to light when local police got wind of illegal salvage operations going on off the coast of Guangdong province.
"On May 25, police learnt that some fishermen had been recovering ancient porcelain objects from the sea," Xinhua said.
Police confiscated 21 pieces of porcelain from a fishing boat whose owner claimed that divers he had hired for deep-sea fishing had recovered the porcelain by accident.
On May 26, another 117 pieces of porcelain were confiscated from two fishing boats carrying out illegal salvage work.
"Police stepped up monitoring of the area and warned local people not to loot the cultural relics. On June 1, two local residents handed over 124 porcelain items to police."
The sunken ship was found just a few days after China began salvage operations at another wreck site dating back to the days of the Song emperors, who ruled between AD 960 and 1279.
It will be interesting to see if China allows any other people (Bob Ballard???) in to look in waters that are deeper. There was a lot of sea-going trade and many ships were simply never heard from, whether from piracy or storm or structural failure, nobody knows.
Posted by DaveH at June 13, 2007 8:34 PM