Nanhai No 1 is truly special. It’s the most complete ancient ship ever found. By studying the ship and its treasures, we can see the incredible skill of Chinese craftspeople and how important ...

when cobalt was shipped from Persia to China for the blue-and-white ceramics found on the Belitung ship. "The ancient networks are restored through industries and factories in a world that is now ...

1271-1368) went on to build even more ships on a grand scale ... trading cruises throughout the Indian Ocean and the China seas (see Ancient Chinese Explorers). Ming seaborne commerce declined ...

This story appears in the March 2017 issue of National Geographic magazine. Technically it’s ancient technology. But now the two-millennia-old principle of the Greek mathematician Archimedes has ...