Docking smoothly! The No. 2 ancient ship at the mouth of the Yangtze River has entered a new stage of archaeology and protection

Today (November 25th) at 1:30 pm, the special salvage engineering ship “Fenli Lun” designed and built for the overall salvage and transportation of the No. Inside the No. 1 dock at the former site of the Shanghai Shipyard. Next, the arc-beam caisson of the ancient ship will be seated on the pre-cast saddle, which marks the successful completion of the overall salvage task of the archaeological and cultural relics protection of the Yangtze River Estuary No. 2 ancient ship.

On March 2, 2022, the archeology and cultural relics of the No. Protect overall salvage stage work. At 0:40 am on November 21, the No. 2 ancient ship at the mouth of the Yangtze River was successfully salvaged as a whole. Today, after the ancient ship is docked and the overall salvage work is completed, it will enter a new stage of archaeological excavation, overall protection of cultural relics and museum construction planning.

The No. 2 ancient ship at the mouth of the Yangtze River is located on the channel of the Yangtze River Estuary. It is a relic of the ancient Maritime Silk Road trade. It was discovered in 2015 during the key survey of underwater archeology in Shanghai. Due to the long-term erosion of the water, the hull of the ship gradually exposed to the bottom of the sea, making it difficult to protect the original site. The turbid waters of the Yangtze River Estuary also made it impossible to conduct a comprehensive and systematic underwater archaeological excavation. The archeology and protection of the No. 2 ancient ship has been included in the national “14th Five-Year Plan for Cultural Relics Protection and Scientific and Technological Innovation Plan”.

In order to ensure the safety of ancient ship hulls and ship-borne cultural relics, the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Cultural Relics, under the guidance of the State Administration of Cultural Relics, integrated the Archaeological Research Center of the State Administration of The protection and research center and other units have researched and formulated a phased protection work plan for ancient ships. After the ancient ship came out of the water on November 21, the on-site protection work started immediately. Cultural relic protection professionals bound and fixed the mast and mast clips on site, and carried out moisturizing treatment and overall covering protection on the exposed hull. At the same time, the seawater and silt in the area where the cultural relics are located were sampled and analyzed to obtain original information on the preservation environment of ancient ship cultural relics in a timely manner.

After the ancient ship enters the dock and takes its seat, a fence will be added to the No. 1 dock site area, and a regional security system will be established to improve the safety protection level. At the same time, the cultural relics protection team will further collect various samples for testing and analysis, and carry out temporary reinforcement and protection of discretely exposed hull components and hull moisturizing treatment in a timely manner. During the construction of the ancient ship museum, a temporary archaeological station covering the entire caisson of the ancient ship will be built in the No. 1 dock area, a steel structure scaffolding protection cabin will be built, equipped with lighting, security and cultural relic protection systems, and real-time monitoring of the environmental conditions of the protection cabin will be carried out. Monitoring and control to ensure the stability of various environmental parameters in the cabin and the safety of the hull and cultural relics. It is estimated that before October 2023, the construction of the temporary archaeological station will be completed, and the ancient ship will enter the stage of laboratory archaeological excavation and overall protection of cultural relics.

The “Fourteenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of Shanghai and Outline of Long-term Goals for 2035” released in January 2021 included the Yangtze Estuary The No. 2 Ancient Ship Museum is listed as a major public cultural and sports facility construction project in Shanghai during the “14th Five-Year Plan”. The Shanghai Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Government have decided to use two old docks and preserved historical buildings to build the Yangtze River Estuary No. It was once an important birthplace of China’s modern industrial civilization, witnessed the development of the “industrial rust belt” into a “life show belt”, and was the place where the important concept of “people’s city” was first launched. In the future, Shanghai will focus on the planning and construction goals of the ancient ship museum with world influence, the world-class underwater archaeological research center, the display window of the international shipping and trade center, and the cultural landmarks of the People’s City “Life Show Belt”, and create a building that can carry out archaeological excavations simultaneously. A living archaeological site museum for cultural relic protection, scientific research and display education.

(Headquarters reporters Zhang Qian, Wei Ran, Ning Wanting)