"The derrick will be used to recover a sunken vessel from the Song Dynasty (960-1127) in the South China Sea, before it possibly being employed to help explore marine oil fields." Source: Underwater archaeology forum "sub-arch" cited from, Wang Ye, Shanghai & Delta, p. 01, 2006-11-24.
Back in the late 1970s I read of a similar ship investigated by the Chinese in one of the delta deposits which was exciting as it contained preserved spices that might be traced to various parts of the Pacific. At about the same time.in the early 1980s, Stony Brook University hosted an international archaeology meeting with China on behalf of the then Dept. of Energy run Brookhaven National Lab nearby where archaeology chemist Emeritus Garman Harbottle worked in his lab. C.N. Yang a Nobel prize winning physicist from Beijing (though then still "Peking" like the German built steel square rigger in NYC South Street Seaport Museum) translated on the spot to the gathered audience during the lecture of the history of Chinese bronze vessels, the tripod vessels referred to as "cooking vessels".
Recently I have been reading that the Chinese have developed the deepest diving vessels in the world and now can dive to 99% of the ocean's depth according to the "People's Daily" so I imagine perhaps this type of excavation and display might be important to show they are becoming leading researchers in planetary exploration, both above and below the ocean.
Sourrce: China Daily
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