Three 1,800-year-old wooden boats found in Beijing's Fengtai district

Three well-preserved wooden boats dating back about 1,800 years have been discovered seven meters underground in the Lize business area of Beijing's Fengtai district, near the gate of the Central Capital of the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234), according to an announcement from the Beijing Institute of Archaeology on Saturday.

The area was once an old waterway, and the discoveries indicate that Beijing had a shipping industry during that period.

Archaeologists believe that the boats might date to a span covering the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), the Three Kingdoms period (220-280), and the earlier Jin Dynasty (265-420). Details of the discovery were released at the closing ceremony of the 2026 Beijing Public Archaeology Season.

These three boats are among the largest and most structurally intact inland ancient vessels ever found in northern China, providing precious material evidence for the study of state-run grain transport and logistics management systems during the period. A stamped Chinese character—"guan", meaning "official"—is clearly visible on the hollow beams of the bulkheads. The mark verifies that the boats were built or operated under official auspices, establishing a key reference standard for identifying official shipbuilding of the period.

Mortise-and-tenon joinery is widely used across the hulls. Additional wooden pegs reinforce seams, creating a composite reinforcement structure. Scholars hypothesize potential connections to Mediterranean shipbuilding techniques of the Roman era, offering new archaeological evidence for technological and cultural exchanges between East and West in antiquity.

To protect the fragile relics, archaeologists used internal steel frame supports and monolithic lifting to extract the boats in one piece. The three boats will undergo conservation, cleaning, and research in relevant laboratories.

Chen Xuran contributed to the story.