Since January 1 China's cultural heritage protection department has begun to salvage an 800-year-old ship.

The sunken ship, named "Nanhai No.1" by archaeologists, dating back to the early Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279), was the first ancient vessel discovered on the "Marine Silk Road" of the South China Sea.

The total salvage cost will be over 100 million yuan (about US$12.3 million), according to a Beijing Morning Post report.

Chinese experts will make a huge "steel box" to salvage the ship with its silt. Traditionally archaeologists would excavate the relics aboard first and then salvage the boat.

Experts have spent three years making the salvage plan, which is a first for underwater archaeology both at home and abroad, Zhang Bai, deputy director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, was quoted as saying.

He said, "In order to better protect the precious relics on Nanhai No.1 and gain essential information, we plan to salvage the ship together with the silt covering it and move it into a specially built museum to carry out the excavation as carefully as possible."

Nanhai No.1, found accidentally in 1987, is located some 20 sea miles west of Hailing Island of Yangjiang City in south China's Guangdong Province, and more than 20 meters deep in the sea. The ship, more than 25 meters long, is the largest cargo ship from the Song Dynasty so far discovered.

Green glazed porcelain plates, tin pots, shadowy blue porcelains and other rare antiques have been found during the initial exploration of the ship. Archaeologists estimate that there are probably 50,000 to 70,000 relics on the ship.

Two meters of silt have helped protect the treasures and the ship for 800 years, but are also creating excavation difficulties for archaeologists.

"We could see nothing in the water, and could only work by touch in the silt," said Zhang Wanxing, a member of the national underwater archaeological team.

Guangdong has earmarked 150 million yuan (about US$18.5 million) to build a "Marine Silk Road Museum" to preserve the salvaged ancient ship.

To ensure that environmental and pressure changes do not damage the relics, the ship will be put in a huge glass pool, in which water temperature, pressure and other environmental conditions will be the same as on the sea bed where the ship has slept for 800 years.

Archaeologists will conduct thorough excavations of the ship in the pool. Looking through the glass walls of the pool, visitors will be able to observe the archaeologists at work, Zhang added.

(Xinhua News Agency January 6, 2006)