Xiaobu learned from the Municipal Wenguang Tourism Bureau that on February 27th, the preliminary evaluation results of the top ten new archaeological discoveries in China in 2022 were announced. According to the voting results, 22 projects were shortlisted for final evaluation. Among them, the site of the ancient port in Shuomen, Wenzhou is listed.
Ruins of ancient port in Shuomen, Wenzhou. Photo by Yang Bingjie
Site survey
The ancient port site of Shuomen in Wenzhou is located in the east of Wangjiang East Road in Lucheng District, outside the northern gate of Wenzhou Ancient City-Shuomen. It is adjacent to the ancient city in the south, the Oujiang River in the north and Haitan Mountain in the east, and echoes the twin towers of Jiangxinyu across the river.
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Ruins of ancient port in Shuomen, Wenzhou. Photo by Yang Bingjie
In October, 2021, the site was discovered in cooperation with the archaeological work of the capital construction of Wangjiang Road underpass project. After being jointly excavated by Zhejiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and Wenzhou Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, it has exposed the ancient city water, Luchengmen related architectural relics, 8 docks, 2 shipwrecks, 1 wooden plank road, multiple groups of dry-column buildings and other important relics, as well as dozens of tons of various porcelain remnants. The main remains are concentrated in the Song and Yuan Dynasties.
General plan of Shuomen ancient port site
Main findings
The excavation area of the site is mainly composed of Shuimentou District at the eastern end, the port area near the river in the middle and Wengcheng District on the south side of the western end.
Shuimentou Block, located at the northern foot of Haitan Mountain, has a high terrain. This block is composed of all kinds of relics on both sides of Shuimen River except Fengen Shuicheng Gate, including Doumen River revetment, steep gates, bridges, embankments, sloping wharves, Song and Yuan houses, etc.
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Distribution map of relics in Shuimentou block
From the Song Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, the Watergate River was wide, and the steep gate was about 5.7 meters wide. Since the Qing Dynasty, the river has been narrowing, and a new steep gate was built in the Republic of China, with a width of only 3.05 meters. On the west side of Shuimen River, there is a long rammed earth embankment that was built earlier than the Northern Song Dynasty and connects the Shuomen Street outside the north wall with the port area at the northern foot of Haitan Mountain. The bank revetment on the side of Shuimen River is built with wooden piles and plywood, and the bank revetment on the west side of Linjiang is built with stones, and the top of the embankment is paved with bricks. The exposed part of the embankment is more than 32 meters long and about 6 meters wide. The sloping wharf of the Northern Song Dynasty, which extends out from the front of the dike, is built on the bedrock at the foot of Haitan Mountain, and is built with block stones. The exposed part is 3.5 meters wide and 13 meters long. Since the Southern Song Dynasty, most areas on the west side of Shuimen River have been silted up into land, and dense buildings have appeared on the surface. One of the building bases is suspected to be a bathing place in the Yuan Dynasty, with dressing rooms and bathing rooms connected in groups, with a construction area of more than 100 square meters.
Slope wharf in northern song dynasty
The port area adjacent to the river is distributed in an east-west strip shape, and shipwrecks, docks and other relics are common here. During the Song Dynasty, the long jetty wharf was multi-stage platform-like, with stone edge and soil core structure. In order to adapt to the tidal flat environment, the bottom of the side wall is often paved with wooden stakes and horizontal bars, plus wooden stakes for enclosure, and the road surface is paved with river pebbles or gravel. Among them, the middle of the platform at the front end of Pier 3 is paved with a flat square and lined with wooden boards, which is 13.8 meters long and 4.3 meters wide.
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Orthographic image of pier 3
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Pier 4
The sunken ship No.2 is still being excavated. The remains of the plank road are located in the north of Wengcheng, with regular workmanship. Seven groups of pile foundations are left, with a length of 16.2 meters and a width of 2.6 meters. According to historical records, the vicinity of the plank road is where the inn is located.
No.1 sunken ship
To the east of the plank road, there are many groups of dry-fence architectural relics, among which F9 is large in scale, and five well-preserved wooden-bone-mud walls are found. Each wall has a central column and a side column, and the buried depth of the column piles is about 3 meters. The walls are woven with bamboo pieces and rattan, with a depth of 12 meters and a width of about 6 meters.
Early and late phases of the foundation site and brick and stone roads were found in the Wengcheng block. In the early period, the wall of Wengcheng was circular, with a stone wall and a soil core, and the foundation site was 4 meters thick, dating from the Southern Song Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty. In the late period, it was changed to a square shape, and the inner and outer walls were built with stones, and the wall was thickened. The base site was 5.3 meters thick, which was in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
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Dry-column house F9
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Shuomen Wengcheng Base Site
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Porcelain accumulation in yuan dynasty
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Longquan Kiln Green Glaze Line Carved Rhombic Plaid Ruyi Foot Porcelain Fume Furnace in Northern Song Dynasty
Other kilns are black glazed porcelain, celadon and brown painted celadon in Ouyao. Some porcelains have ink books on the outsole, such as surname, surname+straight, straight and outline.
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In the late Northern Song Dynasty, Longquan Kiln’s green glaze was grated with lotus folding fan-shaped porcelain bowls.
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Rich relics such as lacquered wood, glazed ware, shells and plant specimens have also been unearthed in the site.
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“Geng Xu Wenzhou Tu Qi Shu went to prison” and painted the bottom of the bowl.
The ruins revealed by the ancient port of Shuomen, with all major elements, complete relics, large scale, complete system and rich connotation, are unique in China and rare in the world, which proves that Wenzhou Port is an important node of the ancient sea silk in China. At the same time, it also provides valuable physical materials and scientific analysis data for the study of ancient Wenzhou city defense, water conservancy projects, ecological environment, production and life, trade exchanges, etc., which is a major discovery and remarkable achievement of urban archaeology and marine archaeology in China.