A large number of items have been salvaged from the wreck of the warship Zhiyuan, sunk by the Japanese navy 121 years ago in waters off the port of Dandong in northeast China.

During the past two months, archaeologists have brought up over 100 items, including a shell found on Monday, said Zhou Chunshui, who leads the State Administration of Cultural Heritage mission .

A well-preserved square porthole was found on Sunday, with cracks in the glass thought to have beeen caused by a sudden drop of temperature when the ship sank.

Zhou told Xinhua on Sunday that the remains of at least seven bodies, believed to be officers and seamen, had been found.

The 50-meter Zhiyuan is located about 10 nautical miles southwest of the port. The wreck was discovered last year, and exploration began in August.

The 1,600-tonne vessel was one of the four warships of the Qing Dynasty Beiyang Fleet, defeated in 1894 by the Japanese navy in the Battle of the Yellow Sea.

Guan Jie, member of China's Society of Sino-Japanese Relations History, said the Beiyang Fleet invested almost all its forces in fighting the Japanese navy. A total of 252 officers and soldiers were on board the Zhiyuan and only seven survived. Captain Deng Shichang refused to abandon the ship after it was holed.

The four ships were China's most sophisticated vessels at that time, bigger and better armed than the Japanese but slower and short of ammunition.