MKsports discovered salt fields Photo: Courtesy of the Shandong Underwater Archaeology Research Center" src="https://www.globaltimes.cn/Portals/0/attachment/2025/2025-02-18/e730b774-bbe5-4ee6-a79a-c461e128027b.jpeg" />The discovered salt fields Photo: Courtesy of the Shandong Underwater Archaeology Research Center
A well-preserved salt production workshop active during the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) and Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) has been discovered in East China's Shandong Province, filling a gap in the archaeological study of salt production during this period in the Yellow River Delta region, the Shandong Underwater Archaeology Research Center told the Global Times on Tuesday.
"It is the first complete salt production chain from the Jin and Yuan periods discovered on the southern shore of Bohai Bay, a sea not far away from the industrial Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region," Yang Xiaobo, the lead archaeologist of the excavation team, told the Global Times.
Yang explained that this site offers the first systematic revelation of a complete production unit compared with previously discovered salt production remnants. It provides crucial empirical evidence for studying the salt production technology used around the Bohai Sea during the Jin and Yuan dynasties.
Archaeologists excavated the eastern and western areas of the site using a combination of test pits and trenches, covering a total area of 7,780 square meters.
They uncovered the remains of a complete salt production workshop from the Jin and Yuan dynasties, along with salt-related artifacts such as pottery tools, according to the Qilu Evening News.
Several salt production workshops and clusters of salt wells were discovered during the excavation. Among them, the salt production workshop is located in the central part of the eastern excavation area, which includes key elements of a complete production chain, such as salt wells, salt kilns, mud pits, clam gray pits and waste pits for salt-making artifacts.
The salt production unit is surrounded by multiple ditches, with a dense network of cart tracks to the north. The surrounding salt wells are distributed in a satellite pattern, suggesting that there may have been multiple salt-making units operating in parallel at the site. This discovery brings the vague geographical positioning of the salt fields mentioned in historical texts into the realm of empirical evidence, the Jinan Times reported.
A group of salt wells was discovered and cleaned in the southern excavation area and in the western excavation area, each group consisting of six circular salt wells.
According to Yang, the site offers researchers a relatively complete depiction of the entire salt production process, from brine extraction to boiling, storage and transportation.
In addition to the salt production tools, there were also advancements in salt production techniques.
Archaeologists discovered that the salt wells employed a protective structure made of horizontally stacked reed bundles vertically reinforced with wooden stakes, which not only prevented collapse but also filtered the brine, making it highly practical.
Salt production along the Bohai Sea coast traditionally relied on underground brine. The salt wells discovered at this site are located relatively close to the surface, and the brine's specific gravity is notably high. This indicates that the site utilized the natural underground brine resources from Shandong, giving the site a distinctive regional characteristic.
In the future, the Shandong Underwater Archaeology Research Center will continue to advance comprehensive archaeological research at this site.