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Shipwreck · Raised (museum)

The Nanhai One

Sank ~1200 · raised 2007, South China Sea, off Yangjiang, Guangdong, China
RECOVERED
Evidence status: Historical tradition. no documented source (historical tradition); legal status unknown (manual verification recommended). This account is presented as historical tradition, not verified fact. Manual verification recommended. Repository evidence: 0 sources · 0 timeline events · 0 media items · legal unknown · view on the Map Evidence on file: historical tradition

The Nanhai One: still unexplained.

60,000 to 80,000 Song-dynasty artifacts in the most complete ancient merchantman known

The law of this ground: Housed at the Maritime Silk Route Museum, Hailing Island; excavated under state control.
The subject
developing the photograph…
The manifest
60,000 to 80,000 Song-dynasty artifacts in the most complete ancient merchantman known
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.
What the record holds

What remains open

  • No period map of the site has surfaced.
  • No contemporary press coverage has been found.
What we know, and what we don't
Established

No documentary claim is yet established. The account rests on tradition.

Still open
  • No period map of the site has surfaced.
  • No contemporary press coverage has been found.
The evidence room

No documentary or visual exhibits have been located yet. The trail below and the open leads are where this dossier grows next — every exhibit that enters here carries a source.

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.
  • Search Library of Congress + DPLA (IIIF) for period cartography of the site.
  • Run Chronicling America for dated newspaper mentions.
  • Query NARA for archival records tied to the site.

Have a source, a map, or a clipping? Add a lead and it enters the record with its citation.

Start the hunt here
The first leads, so no one walks in cold.
Sources and the record
Related case files

The full hunt kit

Starting brief, what's known and disputed, evidence timeline, source list, map card, coordinate-confidence and legal-access summaries, and a field checklist, free with a Fellowship account.

Latest Word From the Newswire

Context, not proof. The dossier's own sources remain the evidence record.

Checking the wire…

Chart position 21.550°, 111.950° (approx.) View on the Map