Inside the world’s largest archaeological field station, a time machine sealed by silt is quietly awakening. In the bustling waters of the Yangtze estuary in Shanghai, a third national cultural relic census in 2007 paved the way for underwater archaeological surveys in the Shanghai area, which began in 2010. A huge ship-shaped outline unexpectedly appeared. It was not the intended target, yet it may hold the real key to unlocking the mysteries of late Qing Dynasty maritime trade. In murky water with near-zero visibility, high-tech sonar scanned a well-preserved wooden shipwreck over 38 meters in length. An unprecedented operation to raise the entire wreck and launch an archaeological excavation is about to begin…
