An 800-year-old merchant boat raised from the South China Sea on Friday is well protected, an expert said in Yangjiang, Guangdong Province on Saturday.

An early examination showed the 30-meter-long vessel, "Nanhai No. 1", wrapped in a huge sealed steel box with tons of seawater and silt, was "perfectly protected" during the lifting process, said Wu Jiancheng, chief of the archaeological project.

"We haven't seen any silt or water leakage from the box. The boat is still in almost the same environment as it has been over the centuries."

The box carrying the boat was raised to the surface on Friday for reinforcement and was fully hoisted out of the water on Saturday morning.

The whole salvage process went smoothly and the box was neither shaking nor leaning, according to Wu.

The barge carrying Nanhai No. 1, meaning "South China Sea No. 1", was to be temporarily docked on Sunday. The boat was then to be put on a huge air bed and sent to a specially-built museum, according to the salvage plan.

"The boat is expected to arrive at its new home in two or three days," Wu said.

Plans called for the boat to be placed in a glass pool at a specially- built museum named the "Crystal Palace" where the water temperature, pressure and other environment al conditions were the same as where the ship had rested on the sea bed.

The pool was 64 meters long, 40 meters wide and 23 meters high. It contained seawater and was about 12 meters in depth.

"It will be sealed after the ship and the silt are put in," said Feng Shaowen, head of the cultural bureau of Yangjiang City, Guangdong Province.

"The excavation work will not be carried out immediately and it may last quite a long time. We want to make sure before carrying out any excavation."

Guangdong has earmarked 150 million yuan (20.3 million U.S. dollars) to build a "Marine Silk Road Museum" to preserve the salvaged ancient ship.

The new museum, run by the Yangjiang municipal government, was expected to open to the public by the end of next year. Visitors would be able to watch the on-going excavation of the ship through windows on two sides of the pool, Feng said.

Discovered in the summer of 1987 off the coast near Yangjiang City, Nanhai No.1 was recognized as one of the oldest and biggest Chinese merchant boats sunk at sea.

To date, archaeologists had recovered more than 4,000 containers made of gold, silver and porcelain, as well as about 6,000 copper coins from the Song Dynasty (960-1279) when the boat was built.

Wu estimated that there were still 60,000 to 80,000 items on board.

According to Huang Zongwei, a professor with the Guangdong-based Sun Yat-Sen University, the boat was proof of the existence of a "Marine Silk Road".

As early as 2,000 years ago, ancient Chinese traders began taking china, silk and cloth textiles and other commodities to foreign countries along the trading route. It started from ports at today's Guangdong and Fujian provinces to countries in southeast Asia, Africa and Europe.

"The 'Marine Silk Road', like the ancient Silk Road that connected China with south, west and central Asia and Europe, was also a bridge for connecting Eastern and Western cultures," Huang said. "But evidence for existence of the path was rare."

(Xinhua News Agency December 23, 2007)