An old cannon has been found buried at the construction site of the ongoing project of building underground rainwater box culverts on the Fai Chi Kei waterfront, the authorities have announced.
The cannon was accidentally dug up by workers on Friday morning, according to statements from the Public Security Police (PSP) and the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) that day.
The government is building underground rainwater box culverts along a section of Rua do Comandante João Belo, i.e., the south-side waterfront of Patane North Bay, a bay off Fai Chi Kei and Ilha Verde, known as Fai Chi Kei North Bay in Cantonese.
The project, which started in May last year, also includes the construction of a rainwater pumping station there.
After receiving the report on Friday morning, PSP officers, firefighters and customs officers rushed to the scene where the PSP bomb disposal unit confirmed that the cannon did not pose any danger after examining it, the PSP statement said.
Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) officials also arrived at the scene to investigate where they recorded the location where the old cannon was dug up and carried out three-dimensional scanning of the object, according to IC statement.
The IC officials confirmed that the cannon is 1.38 metres long with a calibre of 80 millimetres, the statement said.
No other archaeological relics were found at the construction site and nearby, the statement said, adding that the cannon was transported to one of the bureau’s warehouses later that day.
Building work resumed at the construction site later that day after the IC officials completed their on-site investigation.
The bureau will study the cannon’s historical background and significance, the statement said.
Over the past few years, old cannons were found underground at construction sites on three occasions. An old cannon was discovered at a construction site for a rainwater-pipe project near the Ponte 16 casino-hotel in the Inner Harbour area in April 2020. In addition, an old cannon was found at the construction site of Galaxy Macau’s Phase 4 in Cotai in November that year, after which two more old cannons were discovered there in March 2021.
The four old cannons that were found in 2020 and 2021 are currently stored by the bureau’s Macau Museum.
The bureau said in 2022 that the restoration of the four old cannons would take several years because of which they could not be displayed at any time in the near future.
However, the Macau Museum is running a themed website, available in Chinese, Portuguese and English, complete with photos of and information about the four old cannons (https://www.macaumuseum.gov.mo/oldCannons/index.html).
This photo released by the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) on Friday shows the old cannon that was accidentally dug up by workers on the construction site at the south-side waterfront of Patane North Bay earlier that day.
