Search for Maritime Silk Road’s Starting Point Continues

HEBEI PROVINCE, CHINA—Xinhua reports that archaeologists with the State Underwater Cultural Heritage Protection Center and Huanghua City Museum will continue to look for evidence that the starting point of the ancient maritime Silk Road was located in what is now northern China’s port city of Huanghua. “The ongoing excavation is to determine the functions of the port ruins’ different zones,” explained Lei Jianhong of the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics. Previous excavations near the ruins of the ancient town of Haifeng have uncovered traces of an ancient port, including a river, a layer of coal ash, roads, and trampled earth. Archaeologists have also recovered large amounts of different styles of porcelain from north and south China, suggesting that Haifeng had been a center for the porcelain trade as early as the Jin Dynasty (A.D. 1115–1234). For more, go to “Letter from China: Tomb Raider Chronicles.”