A historical river archaeological site at the intersection of Zhidan Road and Yanchang Road W. will be turned into a museum. It is expected to be completed before the 2008 Beijing Olympics.(Photo: Shanghai Daily)Photo Gallery >>>

    BEIJING, Dec. 26 -- Construction of a museum on a historical river archaeological site will start in Shanghai early next year.

    It will be completed before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, city officials said.

    Yesterday, archaeologists used a balloon-mounted camera capture a bird's-eye view of the site at the intersection of Zhidan Road and Yanchang Road W.

    It's the first time that Shanghai has used a balloon camera to take a vertical picture of an archaeological site, and shows that five years of excavation work is complete, officials said.

    "It's big, important, and worth a museum to conserve it forever," said Song Jian, head of the underground relics department of the Shanghai Cultural Relics Management Commission.

    The site, more than 700 years old, was first found by workers building a residential complex in May 2001. Covering a ground area of 1,600 square meters, the ruins are a river control works of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368).

    The blueprint of the museum resembles a floodgate, with two pillars in the middle and descending glass-steel structures on both sides of the pillars.

    The excavation and museum construction will cost the city government about 100 million yuan (US$12.5 million), commission officials said.

    During the past five years, archaeologists have been working carefully to uncover the overall structure and contents.

    The major part of the river control works is a stone gate, about two meters underground, with a width of 6.8 meters.

    The ruins are close to the old course of the Wusong River - which used to be a part of today's Suzhou Creek.