China raises sunken merchant ship after 800 years

Shanghai: An 800-year-old merchant ship was raised from the bottom of the South China Sea on Saturday, loaded with artefacts that might confirm the existence of an ancient maritime trade route linking China and the West.

The 30-metre wooden vessel contains thousands of gold, silver and porcelain trading goods and is as high as a three-storey building, the Xinhua news agency reported.

Named the Nanhai No. 1 or South China Sea No. 1 by archaeologists, the ship was discovered in 1987 off the coast of Guangdong province.

The Nanhai will be towed to a $20 million museum built to house it in Guangdong, where it will be placed in a temperature-controlled tank for viewing.

The museum is expected to open by the end of next year and visitors will be able to watch excavation of the ship from the silt.

The Nanhai could provide evidence of a "Marine Silk Road" linking China's Guangdong and Fujian provinces to Southeast Asia, Africa and Europe.