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The Yangtze No. 2 Ancient Shipwreck, the largest wooden shipwreck discovered underwater in China to date, was recently lifted out of the waters off Hengsha Island in Shanghai's Chongming district.The 150-year-old "time capsule" carries rich historical information. It marks another milestone achievement in China's underwater archaeology and provides valuable evidentiary materials for the studies of China's maritime civilization and for the mutual exchanges among civilizations in ancient times.The Yangtze No. 2 Ancient Shipwreck is one of the largest and best-preserved wooden shipwrecks discovered underwater in China and even the world at large and carrying the richest cultural relics.Based on its...

In the late thirteenth century, the Mongol Empire under Kublai Khan made two unsuccessful attempts to invade Japan. Historian Kawai Atsushi gives the background to the invasion, examines different theories about reasons for its failure, and looks at the aftermath for both sides. In November 1274, a fleet carrying some 30,000 Mongol Empire troops approached Hakata Bay off the Japanese island of Kyūshū. Genghis Khan had established the empire in the early thirteenth century by unifying the nomadic peoples of the Mongolian Plateau. Successive leaders expanded the empire through central Asia, and made Goryeo (Korea) a vassal state in 1259....

After the dynasty collapsed, there were no clues as to where it was and it lived on only in legend through writings such as those of 13th century Venetian merchant Marco Polo. If Polo is to be believed, the walls of "the greatest palace that ever was" were covered with gold and silver and the main hall was so large that it could easily seat 6,000 people for dinner. "The palace was made of cane supported by 200 silk cords, which could be taken to pieces and transported easily when the emperor moved," he wrote in his travel journal. It...

Archaeologists have discovered the wreck of a Mongolian ship that was part of a fleet dispatched by Kublai Khan to invade Japan in the 13th century. The ship is the second to be located off southern Japan from two massive armadas – each reputedly made up of more than 4,000 ships and with an invasion force of 140,000 men – sent by the emperor of the Yuan Dynasty to conquer Japan in 1274 and 1281. Both invasion fleets were destroyed by devastating typhoons, with the storms going down in Japanese history as "kamikaze", or divine wind, that saved the nation...

The vessel is the first of its kind to have been discovered relatively intact and dates from a series of attempts by Kublai Khan, emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, to subjugate Japan between 1274 and 1281. Researchers have previously only been able to recover anchor stones and cannonballs from the scattered wrecks of the Mongol fleets and they believe that this latest find will shed new light on the maritime technology of the day. The warship was located with ultrasonic equipment about 3 feet beneath the seabed at a depth of 75 feet. The archeological team, from Okinawa's University of...