Out of all the historic sites in Taiwan, the Anping Fort (originally named Fort Zeelandia) is a special one. This is because it is one of the earliest and, only some remains are left of it. Its true value has been blurred by many factors such as change in name after the WWII, addition of improper facilities within the premise and lack of education. In the planning for the "National Anping Harbor Historic Park", project "King's Castle Excauation" paves the way for an excavation of Fort Zeelandia. This operation is a very important archaeological work of all the historic sites in Taiwan.
The truth is every archaeological work always encounter many uncertainties, until the site is excavated. This makes the archaeological work more exciting. After a few months of excavation work, the archaeological team has gained breakthroughs in the finds concerning to building structures of Fort Zeelandia and documentary evidences. As more and more archaeological remnants are being unearthed, there are many questions being answered as well as more questions being asked.
Since there are very few historical remains of Fort Zeelandia, the common visitors are made to believe that the present Anping Fort watch house and museum are the historic sites. This actually casts a shadow on the actual historical importance of Fort Zeelandia. The structural remnants unearthed will help archaeologists reconstruct the Fort Zeelandia few centuries ago, thus enabling visitors to understand the historical importance of Castle. On the other hand, the written document found will give an insight on people's way of life a few centuries ago and the history of Anping District. Therefore there is a great expectation on the excavations giving a more complete picture of Fort Zeelandia.
During the excavation process the public would have a chance to visit the open archaeological site and thus it would serve as an education site to the public. During the execution phase of the plan, many high officials such as President of Executive Yuan Yu His-kun, academicians Tsao yun-ho and Sun Wen-Hsun and congressmen from the Neatherland visited the site, which shows the high expectations and attention attracted for the planned excavations.
Due to the limited time for the planning of the excavations, the cooperations of many research organizations involved, and the unprecedented approach to open the excavation to tourists, so there are many areas that require improvement. The major work to be done after excavation would be on how to preserve the remnants discovered during excavation. At the present the first excavation site has been partially refilled and the western end of third excavation site has been completely refilled. The archaeologists have started studying the excavated remnants. Since the excavation area is small there is no way of identifying the building structures. Many experts agree that there is a need to increase the area of excavations in order to understand more of the building structures. This team realizes that this project is of high importance to the protection and maintenance of Taiwan’s historic sites and hope for the public’s continuous support for this project.
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"King's Castle Excauation" Documentary Film：
