Divers Recover Hong Kong’s Oldest Maritime Artifact

By Tom Metcalfe, Live Science Contributor | August 4, 2016 07:20am ET





In the waters around Hong Kong, divers recently recovered a 1,000-year-old granite anchor stock — the oldest maritime artifact ever found in the Chinese territory — and a European-made cannon from the early 19th century, which may have been used on a merchant ship to defend against pirates, according to archaeologists.

The recent discoveries hint that a trove of undiscovered relics could lurk beneath the waves of the harbor city.

"We see this as the tip of the iceberg," dive expedition leader Bill Jeffery, an archaeologist with the Hong Kong Underwater Heritage Group, told Live Science. "The Hong Kong SAR (Special Administrative Region) is 60 percent water, and yet nearly no archaeology has been done underwater here." (See Photos of the Seafaring Relics Found in Hong Kong's Waters)

The 6-foot-long (1.8 meters) granite stock — the upper crosspiece found on some anchors — was recovered from the seabed, beneath about 10 feet (3 m) of water, near the base of a cliff on Hong Kong's High Island.

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