The remains of one of the ships sent more than 2,000 in the late thirteenth century by the Mongol Empire to the island of Kyushu in two failed invasion of Japan have been found by a group of Japanese archaeologists.

The identification of the medieval ship is preliminary , but many tests corroborate the Mongolian attribution. The discovery lies at a depth of 14 meters near Takashima Island , just east of 1700 meters in 2011 discovered another addition Mongolian ship on the seabed have been collected regarding the most dangerous invaders numerous artifacts of the time .

The visible part of the remains includes structures nearest port and the starboard bow of the boat. The planks used to build it are at least 11 meters long , divers secured cited by the newspaper Asahi Shimbun .

“I really hope it is a ship of the Mongol invaders ,” the archeology professor Yoshifumi Ikeda, “We plan to clarify details such as the structure, size and origin [ of the boat ] by further excavation. Has been preserved well, what we hope will provide us with a large shipment of pottery and weapons. “

A riddle that will probably take years to be resolved is whether or not the ship participated in one of the two expeditions that took place during the reign of the great Chinese emperor Kublai Khan and founder of the Yuan Dynasty.

The first set sail in 1274 and consisted of between 800 and 900 ships of various sizes carrying a total of 13,000 Mongol warriors , Chinese and Korean . The landing was a partial and fleeting success and the attempt was repeated in 1281, when the ruler sent more than 1,170 ships to Japan , but virtually all of them were destroyed by a typhoon while the invaders moved from one island to another .

The discovery was made possible by a scientific search Ryukyu University and the Department of Education of the City of Matsuura carried out in the area with the use of a profiling sonar to detect underwater objects .

source: wordpress.com