STONE HEAD: A sculpture made during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) on show (WEI YAO)

It was China's first national survey on underwater relics and as such is a landmark accomplishment for China's underwater archeological work, resulting in the recovery of more than 10,000 pieces of porcelain alone.

In fact, Huaguangjiao 1 is neither the first nor the only sunken ship that has been found in the region. It was one of the busiest international maritime trading routes in history, sometimes known as the Marine Silk Road, along which ancient Chinese merchants shipped porcelain, silk, and other commodities overseas. As a result, the region has thousands of ancient shipwrecks.

The protection of underwater cultural heritage has already gained the attention of the Chinese Government.

"The protection of underwater cultural heritage is an important part of China's ocean strategy," said Shan Jixiang, Director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

In recent years, coastal states across the world have accelerated the development of the methods used to harness ocean resources. The protection and utilization of underwater cultural heritage has attracted extensive attention on the back of this trend, explained Shan.

"China's underwater archaeology and cultural heritage protection has made significant progress throughout the last two decades," Shan added.

China's first underwater archaeology organization, the Underwater Archaeology Research Center, was founded by the National Museum of China in 1987. So far, the center has trained more than 80 underwater archaeological divers.

A DEEP MESS: Ancient porcelain on display (WEI YAO)

After more than two decades of development, China's underwater cultural heritage protection has taken shape. It has expanded from one department leading the work to active cooperation between multiple departments. It has also changed from dealing with purely underwater archeology to dealing with overall underwater cultural heritage protection.

Driven by potentially massive profits, the stealing of underwater relics occurs frequently, especially in Guangdong and Fujian provinces where many wrecks are located. For instance, in the fight against illegal salvage and the selling of underwater cultural relics, Fujian's frontier defense forces successfully concluded 45 investigations into the stealing of underwater cultural relics and reclaimed 7,144 underwater cultural relics as a result of their work in October 2006.

"The situation is very severe," said Pu Gong, Vice Director of the Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology of Guangdong. Pu was responsible for the archeological expeditions undertaken on the two sunken ships named Nanhai 1 and Nan'ao 1 found near Guangdong.

Currently, the clues that archeologists receive about the locations of sunken ships come almost entirely from cultural relic thieves. The salvage of Nanhai 1, which had been successfully lifted out of water whole and intact, and Nan'ao 1 was undertaken urgently in order to beat relic thieves to the punch, according to Pu.

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