The ancient Maritime Silk Road was a sea passage connecting China with other countries and regions such as Southeast Asia, East Africa, and Europe. The waters of the South China Sea were thereby a necessary route.

In 2023, one Chinese archaeological team discovered two shipwrecks dated back to Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) on the northwest slope of the South China Sea. The ships were loaded with porcelain objects, logs and other goods, each telling where it came from and where it was going.

Exploring the deep-sea witnesses

As early as 2007, the shipwreck Nanhai I of the Southern Song Dynasty(1127-1279),weighing 5,500 tons, was salvaged as a whole, triggering a global sensation. Nanhai I with more than 180,000 pieces of cultural relics retrieved along with it, is the world's largest and best-preserved ocean-going merchant shipwreck discovered so far, ranking as a world-class archaeological discovery.

Compared with Nanhai I which sank merely 24 meters deep in the sea, the two Ming Dynasty shipwrecks were found as deep as 1,500 meters below the sea surface. It is China's self-developed manned deep submersible Deep Sea Warrior that made this magnificent achievement.

Deep-sea archaeology represents the frontiers of underwater archaeological research, in which, since manual work is impossible, deep-sea submersibles or underwater robots are required, and various disciplines, such as marine engineering and marine science, provide the necessary support.

One of the two Ming Dynasty shipwrecks carried porcelain objects, which scattered over an area of up to tens of thousands of square meters and stacked up with a maximum thickness of over 3 meters. It is estimated that the number of porcelain objects exceeded 100,000. This shipwreck, named Northeast Continental Slope No. 1 Shipwreck of the South China Sea (hereinafter referred to as No. 1 Shipwreck), was preliminarily identified as a merchant ship sailing from China during the Zhengde era (1506-1521) of the Ming Dynasty.

The other was loaded with a large number of roughly processed and neatly placed logs of similar size. Based on a preliminary analysis, it was a ship heading for China from overseas during the Hongzhi era (1488-1505) of the Ming Dynasty. It was named Northeast Continental Slope No. 2 Shipwreck of the South China Sea (hereinafter referred to as No. 2 Shipwreck). Both shipwrecks represent another significant world-class archaeological discovery after Nanhai I.

Depicting the South China Sea trade routes

China's earlier underwater archaeological work was mainly carried out in the waters adjacent to the coast and islands, but this investigation is the first archaeological activity on deep-sea artifacts.

There are more than 100 ancient shipwreck sites in the South China Sea, and linking these sites is significant for studying South China Sea trade routes.

Although the two ships of No. 1 and No. 2 shipwrecks sailed in opposite directions, as the former departed from China while the latter headed for China, they belonged to the same historical period and sank roughly in the same area – just over ten nautical miles apart. This fact shows how important this location was and how bustling this trade route was.

It can be said that the shipwreck sites on the northwest continental slope of the South China Sea make up for the missing part of the ancient deep-sea navigation route in the South China Sea, connecting the historical chain of the Maritime Silk Road.

There were representative shipwrecks in each historical stage. In 1998, a shipwreck of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) was discovered in the sea of Billiton, Indonesia, carrying a large number of porcelain objects; in 1997, a shipwreck of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (907-979) was spotted in the sea of Java, Indonesia, containing silver ingots with the inscription "Guiyang Jian" and other Chinese characters as well as lead coins with the inscription "Qianheng Zhongbao" of the Southern Han Kingdom (917-971), one of the regional authorities during the Ten Kingdoms period. The Nanhai I which was salvaged as a whole in 2007, belonged to the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279).

The Portuguese first crossed the Strait of Malacca in the 16th century and arrived in China's Pearl River Delta. Among the relics of the early Portuguese trade outposts on the coastal islands of Guangdong Province, a large number of blue-and-white porcelain objects and reddish-green porcelain objects of the Ming dynasty were uncovered, some of which bore the Portuguese royal cross, indicating that China and Europe had established direct trade ties.

The shipwrecks on the northwest continental slope of South China Sea dated back to the middle and late Ming Dynasty, are typical example of ships travelling between the South China Sea and the western oceans and seas on the eve of the Age of Exploration.

The No. 1 Shipwreck may have been sailing from the southeast of China to the western oceans and seas. During that period, Iran, Turkey, and other monarchies collected blue-and-white porcelain objects, as did the European royal families, who greatly admired Chinese blue-and-white porcelain.

People in Southeast Asia, geographically close to China, mastered porcelain-making techniques, but their blue-and-white porcelain were inferior in color and quality to those produced in China. During the export ban on maritime trade in the Ming Dynasty, porcelain objects made in Southeast Asia and Imari Wares made in Japan became popular for a short period of time. But after the ban was lifted, Chinese porcelain re-occupied the market.

China's Belt and Road initiative draws on the historical legacy of the (Land) Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road. Just as archaeological findings in northwest China have enriched the study of the Silk Road, the discovery of the shipwrecks in the South China Sea provided important clues for exploring the Maritime Silk Road.

The article is based on the interview with Xiao Dashun, Director of the Underwater Archaeology Research Institute, Guangdong Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology.

Qi Zitong /Editor    Deng Zhong /Translator

Yang Xinhua /Chief Editor    Ren Qiang /Coordinator

Liu Li /Reviewer

Zhang Weiwei /Copyeditor    Tan Yujie /Image Editor

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