East China's Quanzhou sees archaeological breakthroughs on ocean trade

The city of Quanzhou in east China's Fujian Province, one of the most important Chinese ports along the historic Maritime Silk Road, reported new findings over archaeological efforts from 2019 to 2020, experts said at a seminar held in Quanzhou from Friday to Saturday.

The latest research and excavation results on iron-making remains in Quanzhou's Anxi County showed that it previously manufactured big iron and steel, major commodities of trade along the historic Maritime Silk Road, mainly during the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), said Shen Ruiwen, a professor at the School of Archaeology and Museology of Peking University.

Two other sites were discovered and identified as the remains of regulatory bodies that existed within the two dynasties, said Wang Bo, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

One of them oversaw affairs related to the emperors' kin and the other served similar functions as today's customs, according to Wang.

The city is the site of China's only UNESCO World Cultural Heritage application project in 2020 named "Quanzhou: China's World Ocean Trade Center in Song Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty."