The race for Hong Kong's oldest maritime treasure: days remain to retrieve Song dynasty artefact

Plans to recover what is likely to be Hong Kong's oldest maritime artefact were scuttled by bad weather yesterday.

The archaeological diving team will have to wait until early next year to lift the anchor stock which they believe to be a thousand-year-old relic from the Song dynasty.

The plan had been to lift the object - the top part of an anchor - from the Sai Kung seabed and submit it for further study to the Hong Kong Maritime Museum.

"I am of course a bit annoyed," said Australian archaeologist Bill Jeffery, who is licensed to retrieve the anchor but is only in Hong Kong for a week.

"But the weather plays a crucial role in this work and you just have to accept that the safety of your divers comes first," he said.

Four members of the Hong Kong Underwater Heritage Group first discovered the granite object weighing 80kg on a diving mission in June last year while searching for ceramics.