La città dei sette buchi comincia ad avere dimensioni
Dal 1986 ad oggi, in quasi 40 anni di scavi archeologici, non è stato trovato alcun testo..In the 5-meter-deep silt, the residual length is about 38.1 meter, about 9 wide.9 meters, 31 compartments have been proven. The bow, bollard, main mast, and port side of the upper part of the ancient ship are structurally complete, and from the current survey situation, it is speculated that it is the most likely sand ship widely used in Shanghai in the Qing Dynasty. Through the selection of 4 cabins for a small area of cleaning, the cabins were found to be neatly stacked Jingdezhen kiln porcelain and other exquisite cultural relics, and there are many types and quantities of cultural relics that have been completely out of the water or can be repaired. In addition, a large number of cultural relics such as purple sand ware, Vietnamese hookah cans, wooden bucket fragments, masts, large ship materials, iron anchors, brown cables, pulleys, and building materials have been unearthed in and around the hull. In particular, the bottom of the green glazed cup that comes out of the water has a “Tongzhi year” paragraph, which provides an important basis for the dating of ancient ships. In 2021 and 2022, the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage twice organized underwater archaeological professional institutions to conduct underwater surveys on the No. 2 ancient ship at the mouth of the Yangtze River and its surroundings, and cleaned up large whole vessels such as Yuan Dynasty porcelain and 60 cm high complete bean green glazed blue and white vase that were not found in previous surveys, as well as a batch of ceramics from Yixing kiln in Jiangsu.
The Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 Ancient Ship is another milestone discovery of China’s underwater archaeology, and is one of the largest, most complete and rich ancient wooden shipwrecks found in China and even in the world, filling the gap in the research of large-scale wooden sailing ships in the late Qing Dynasty in China, and is a precious cultural heritage. At the same time, the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 is also the first time that underwater archaeologists took the initiative to discover and carry out archaeological investigations during the national underwater cultural relics survey, the integrity of the hull and the rich shipboard cultural relics, in China and even the world shipbuilding history, shipping history, ceramic history, economic history and other research is of great significance.
The world’s first salvage technology was successful
From the discovery to the underwater investigation to the overall salvage, the empowerment of science and technology has always been an important way and core driving force to promote the archaeology and cultural relics protection of the ancient ship. At the mouth of the Yangtze River, where visibility is almost zero, the search for underwater cultural heritage is like looking for a needle in a haystack. The muddy water environment is an extremely difficult bottleneck for the development of underwater archaeology in China and even in the world. At the beginning of the underwater archaeological work, the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage organized archaeologists and scientific and technological workers from the Archaeological Research Center of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Shanghai Cultural Relics Protection Research Center, Shanghai University, the Ningbo Base for the Protection of National Underwater Cultural Heritage and other institutions to carry out cross-border cooperation, jointly tackle key problems, and independently develop “underwater imaging devices in muddy waters” and “key technologies and applications of robotic underwater archaeological equipment”. Marine geophysical prospecting equipment such as shallow formation profiler and magnetometer have carried out underwater surveys in the waters of the Yangtze River Estuary, and the integration and development of scientific and technological innovation has become the most important factor in the discovery of the No. 2 ancient ship in the Yangtze River Estuary.
After the State Administration of Cultural Heritage agreed to adopt an overall salvage method to protect the No. 2 ancient ship at the mouth of the Yangtze River, the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage cooperated with the Transportation.The Shanghai Salvage Bureau integrated the world’s most advanced salvage technology, technical route and equipment manufacturing, and finally researched and formed the world’s first – “arc beam non-contact cultural relics overall migration technology” to salvage this ancient ship. This technology creatively integrates the nuclear power arc beam processing technology, tunnel shield tunneling technology, immersed tunnel docking technology, and uses the most advanced high-tech in the world such as hydraulic synchronous lifting technology and integrated monitoring system.
In order to smoothly and safely lift the caisson formed by the arc beam and smoothly escort it to the dock, a special salvage engineering vessel “Fenli Ship” was creatively designed and built. The main scale of the “Endeavor Wheel” is 130 meters long, 34 meters wide, 9 meters deep, and has a design draft of 6 meters. The arc-shaped beam caisson after the completion of the beam is loaded with the ancient ship directly lifted from the seabed to the middle moon pool by the “hard wheel”, and transferred and unloaded to the dock, a ship has completed the three tasks of lifting, transportation and unloading, and has many advantages such as high safety, strong operability and high technology content.
On September 6 this year, the main operation ship of the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 Ancient Ship Overall Salvage Project “Dali” arrived in the waters where the ancient ship is located, and officially launched the overall salvage and archaeological protection of the ancient ship. On September 12, the special “end plate-longitudinal beam” composite frame for the overall salvage of the ancient ship was sunk to the design position. On September 29, the offshore construction entered the stage of installing arc beams, and officially passed through the first group of 22 groups of arc beams. On November 15, the 22nd group of arc beams was put in place. On November 17, the special engineering ship “Fenli Ship” arrived at the waters where the ancient ship was located, and the overall salvage water entered a critical stage. On November 21, after 77 days of offshore construction, the ancient ship was successfully salvaged as a whole.
On November 25th, the No. 2 ancient ship at the mouth of the Yangtze River was brought into the No. 1 dock at the former site of Yangpu Shanghai Shipyard by the “Endeavor Ship”, opening a new stage of cultural relics protection and archaeological excavation. (Workers’ Daily)
Reporter Su Mo