Ancient Shipwreck Sites of Lianjiang

The sea area stretching from the Min River Estuary to Huangqi Bay was known in ancient times as Gantang Port, a major shipping route for vessels home and abroad through the ages. Yet without modern navigation markers in antiquity and countless hidden reefs scattered across these waters, ships sailing at night frequently ran aground and sank.

Surveys conducted by cultural relics authorities have identified 11 ancient shipwreck sites in three waters: 1,200 metres southwest of Changsha Village in Huangqi Town, 3,500 metres southeast of Gesha Village in Xiaocheng Town, and 250 metres off Dinghai Village. Over 3,000 underwater artefacts have been unearthed from these sites, including ceramic bowls, pots, basins, cups and jars, Duan ink slabs, iron cannons, bronze blunderbusses and more. Appraisal confirms the wrecks date back to the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.

In March 1990, Clyde Clark, researcher at the Southeast Asian Ceramic Research Centre of the University of Adelaide in Australia; Jimmy Green, Head of Archaeology at the Western Australian Maritime Museum; and technician Robert Richard teamed up with Yu Weichao, Curator of the National Museum of China, researcher Zhang Wei, and archaeologists from the Cultural Relics Department of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage. Supported by the Fujian Provincial Museum, Fuzhou Museum and Lianjiang Bureau of Culture, they led 11 trainees of China’s first underwater archaeology training cohort to Dinghai Village in Xiaocheng Town of Lianjiang County.

Over three months, the team carried out underwater archaeological excavations covering a 300-metre radius of surrounding waters. They mapped nine ancient shipwreck sites, retrieved more than 2,000 ceramic wares and numerous ship timbers from the seabed. The crew also recorded video footage of sunken vessel locations and underwater relics, drafted topographic maps marking the distribution of wrecks and artefacts, and completed precise positioning and coordinate calibration for each wreck site. The underwater archaeological mission at Dinghai was fully accomplished. Chinese and Australian scholars co-authored an academic paper on the Dinghai underwater archaeology project in Lianjiang County, which was published in the World Archaeology Journal that November.

In 1975, a dugout canoe was unearthed at Dawang Palace by the Ao River and is now preserved in the Fujian Provincial Museum.