Since the start of salvage work on Nan'ao One, a sunken merchant vessel off the coast of South China's Guangdong Province, thousands of relics including porcelain and ironware, have been pulled from the water. As the salvage work continued on Thursday afternoon, divers also examined the sunken ship itself.

Thursday's work mainly focused on reinforcing the ship's main cabin and salvaging relics from Cabin Two. Archeologists are excited to find new types of porcelain.

The new collection of relics salvaged from the ship were classified immediately. Most of them are pieces of blue and white porcelain. Other relics include metal rings, pots, steelyards and iron weapons. Some are still in a good shape.

Most of the salvage work needs to be done underwater, because the hull of the Ming dynasty vessel was severely damaged when it sunk. Divers mapped out the perimeter, removed the silt and extracted relics.

Archeologists say, to retrieve underwater relics is only the first step of the long process to further study and protect the sunken vessel.

Gu Yucai, deputy director of State Admin. of Cultural Heritage, said, "We divided the whole process into two steps when we made the salvage plan in 2007. The first step is to salvage the relics from the vessel, which is what we are doing now, and the second step is to re-float the whole sunken vessel after all the relics have been removed from the water."

Archeologists also believe further study of the items will reveal more secrets of the ancient maritime silk road in the South China Sea.

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