China Excavates 200 Tons of Cultural Relics from South China Sea Shipwreck

Chinese archaeologists have salvaged more than 200 tons of cultural relics from a sunken ship "Nanhai No. 1" in the South China Sea.

The cultural relics include 80 tons of iron ware, far beyond what experts used to thought about the merchant ships of the Song Dynasty.

The archaeological team briefed on the latest salvage operations to mark the 30th anniversary of the shipwreck first discovered.

The merchant ship sank in the South China Sea 800 years ago and the salvage of the shipwreck started a decade ago.

According to archaeologists, they now have a preliminary understanding of the ship's frame, and its interior structure.

"The ship has 15 compartments in total. We concluded that the first compartment was damaged, but the beams are still present. The 15th compartment served as the afterpeak compartment, and it is normally not for storing cargo. But now, we found some goods there. So we divide the ship into 15 compartments in the horizontal direction," said Sun Jian, inspector-general, Underwater Cultural Heritage Protection Center, State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

Judging from its hull, the archaeologists came to the conclusion that the ship was on the way to the Southeast Asia, even farther.

It is the world's best-preserved and the largest wreckage of an ocean-going commercial vessel.
http://www.cctvplus.com/news/20171208...

Subscribe us on Youtube:    / cctvplus  
CCTV+ official website: http://www.cctvplus.com/
LinkedIn:   / cctv-news-content  
Facebook:   / newscontent.cctvplus  
Twitter:   / cctv_plus