The Nanhai One

The account

A Southern Song trader went down in the South China Sea eight centuries ago and settled upright in the silt, hold full. Found in 1987, she proved so intact that China raised the entire ship in one steel box in 2007, sixty to eighty thousand pieces of porcelain, gold, and coin, and floated her into a purpose-built 'Crystal Palace' museum to be excavated on dry land. The best-preserved ancient cargo ship ever found.

Leads, where the trail points now

• A Song dynasty merchant ship found in the South China Sea in 1987 and, remarkably, raised whole inside a giant steel box in 2007, now sitting in a purpose-built museum pool in Guangdong.
• The excavation happens inside the museum, slowly, on tens of thousands of pieces of porcelain, gold, and silver; it is a museum dig, not a hunt.
• The lead for the region is the many other Song and Tang trade wrecks scattered along the Maritime Silk Road.