by On the morning of March 2, China’s largest overall salvage and protection project for ancient sunken ships – the Yangtze Estuary No.
2 Ancient Ship Archaeology and Cultural Relics Protection Project was officially launched in Shanghai.
As early as December 22, 2016, a piece of hull wood of the ancient ship “Changjiang Estuary No.
2″ found in the trial salvage stage was “deposited” in the Chongming District Museum.
This “deposit” is more than five years.
In the stele corridor of the Chongming Museum lies an opaque sink, which is a piece of dried wood.
With only a cursory glance, how can we think of this seemingly ordinary wood “crossing” in front of us for nearly 150 years? Feng Xidan, deputy curator of Chongming District Museum, still remembers the scene when the trailer carried it into the museum – the first time he saw such a long car, loaded with 22 meters of “Changjiang Estuary No.
2″ wood components, and drove all the way into the stele corridor to let the wood just out of the water carefully “land”.
Now, when you look at the wood carefully, you can find the traces of shellfish attachment on it.
At that time, the wood was covered with moss, algae and shellfish.
For more than five years, no one has complained that this wood has hindered the normal visit, but the staff in the museum did not explain more.
First, the archaeological team has not completed the “exploration” in the sense of archaeology, and the popularization of science to the public can only be postponed; Second, although the museum in Chongming District is only “temporarily in custody” of cultural relics, in the process of docking with the archaeological team, the deputy curator Feng Xidan realized that things are not so simple.
After the discovery of “Changjiang Estuary No.
2″ in Hengsha waters, the archaeological team urgently needs to find a place where the trial fishing wooden components can be placed throughout Shanghai.
The selection of Chongming Museum is precisely because of its large site and its ability to meet the needs of scientific and technological protection of cultural relics and wood.
The requirements for the protection of cultural relics are strict, and the whole team needs tacit cooperation.
The wood just fished out from the sea has high salt content.
If it is exposed directly in the dry environment, the residual chlorine ion will damage the wood’s interior.
Therefore, the Chongming Museum will install a new faucet in the stele gallery to create a water storage environment for the wooden components, and regularly change the water to carry out a one-year “salt replacement” process.
Although the drying process is controllable, the archaeology team is still worried about biological damage such as termites eating wood, so the Chongming Museum will also ask the staff to check whether there are “unknown creatures” “nesting on the wood every day.
Over the past five years, scientific protection has been continuous and uninterrupted.
Every week, a scientific researcher will come to Chongming Museum from downtown Shanghai to observe the state of wood and record relevant data.
Dr.
Zhao Luo, the staff member in charge of specific protection, told the reporter: “The reason for paying attention to its protection is that after the overall salvage work of the ancient ship is completed, the wood will be installed back to its original position, restoring the original appearance of the ancient ship.
Ancient China did not pay attention to the file management of the craftsman, and the physical data can help restore the file and verify the history at that time.” It is understood that, Before the wooden components are officially returned to the “Changjiang Estuary No.
2″ ancient ship, citizens and tourists can see the real appearance of the relics in the Chongming Museum.
Friendly reminder: It is important to visit civilization and destroy cultural relics.
It is not advisable to use the ancient boat No.
2 at the Yangtze River Estuary as a wooden sailboat.
It is confirmed that the age is the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty (1862-1875 AD), and the ship type is suspected to be a flat-bottomed sand boat widely used for water transportation in Shanghai during the Ming and Qing dynasties.
The water depth of the ancient ship is 8-10 meters, the hull is buried in 5.5 meters of deep mud, with a transverse inclination of about 27 ° to the left, a residual length of about 38.5 meters, and a residual width of about 7.8 meters.
It has been proved that there are 31 cabins.
At present, a large number of exquisite cultural relics such as Jingdezhen kiln porcelain have been found in the cabin, and purple sand ware, Vietnamese hookah cans, wooden bucket remnants, and Yuan Dynasty porcelain have also been unearthed around the hull.
In particular, the “Tongzhi Year System” in the bottom book of some water porcelains in ancient ships provides an important basis for the dating of ancient ships.
The Yangtze Estuary No.
2 ancient ship is another landmark discovery of underwater archaeology in China after the “Nanhai No.
1″ sunken ship of the Song Dynasty in Guangdong Province, which was discovered 35 years ago.
It is one of the largest ancient wooden sunken ships found in China and even in the world, with the most complete preservation, and an estimated large number of cultural relics on board.
It is a valuable cultural heritage with extremely important historical, scientific and artistic value.
This archaeology is also one of the important signs that China’s underwater archaeology has entered the world-class level.
Reporter: Liu Liming Photographer: Zhu Yuwei Editor: Liu Liming.
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