Unique 500 year old shipwreck in the Baltic sea

[mic-art]

I saw this in the news on swedish television today. This was the only news in english i could find at the moment.

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-mysterious-500-year-old-shipwreck-has-been-found-at-the-bottom-of-the-baltic-sea

[Louie da fly]

Very interesting indeed. This puts it in the era of carracks - one of my favourite types of ship. You can see the wales, and the foremast right aft of the bowsprit - maybe a suggestion of a forecastle? And the ship's boat is two-ended, as shown in most contemporary pictures of them. The mainyard's still there, but most of the aftercastle is gone, though you can see she has a round stern and the timbers supporting the aftercastle are still in place. Anchor still in position, and is that a pump just aft of the mainmast, forrard of the hatch and capstan?

 

SO much detail, and the state of preservation is up there with the Black Sea wrecks.

 

I look forward to hearing more about this one.

 

Steven

[woodrat]

Beautifully preserved wreck and a log pump AND capstan in situ. Wow! Note the transom timber at the stern with a round tuck stern and she is carvel. Not what I would expect from a northern ship of the era. that foremast is very forrard and stepped on the stempost. Fascinating find!

Dick

[druxey]

Thanks for bringing this significant find to our attention, mic-art! Tak!

[mic-art]

3 hours ago, druxey said:

Thanks for bringing this significant find to our attention, mic-art! Tak!

My pleasure! Now i’m resting my feet after a visit at the Vasa museum. Took a bazillion photos 😉

[Matle]

On 7/24/2019 at 12:30 PM, woodrat said:

Beautifully preserved wreck and a log pump AND capstan in situ. Wow! Note the transom timber at the stern with a round tuck stern and she is carvel. Not what I would expect from a northern ship of the era. that foremast is very forrard and stepped on the stempost. Fascinating find!

Dick

The recently found Mars (sunk mid 1500s), as well as Elefanten from the same time, also had round-tuck sterns and were carvel built. Gribshunden, which sank 1495, was built in the same way. Carvel became the dominant form of construction of larger ships in the Baltic during this time, but it is interesting to see a smaller ship built in the same style. 

 

—-

Fabulous find- Even the boat is still there.

 

I’ve been contemplating building a 16th century carvel ship, but with the rate they are currently uncovering new wrecks and how they were  constructed my model would be built on obsolete information by the time I finished...

Edited October 13, 2019 by Matle

[woodrat]

13 hours ago, Matle said:

I’ve been contemplating building a 16th century carvel ship, but with the rate they are currently uncovering new wrecks and how they were  constructed my model would be built on obsolete information by the time I finished..

Go for it, Matie! All you can do is the best you can. Halfway through my build of a round ship C13 a Black Sea wreck of the same era was was found. Fortunately, as I had based my build on solid archaeological evidence and not on speculation, the find largely confirmed my interpretation. In any case there was such a wide variation in local practice that you probably wont go far wrong. Cheers.

Dick

[Matle]

On 7/24/2019 at 10:30 AM, Louie da fly said:

Very interesting indeed. This puts it in the era of carracks - one of my favourite types of ship. You can see the wales, and the foremast right aft of the bowsprit - maybe a suggestion of a forecastle? And the ship's boat is two-ended, as shown in most contemporary pictures of them. The mainyard's still there, but most of the aftercastle is gone, though you can see she has a round stern and the timbers supporting the aftercastle are still in place. Anchor still in position, and is that a pump just aft of the mainmast, forrard of the hatch and capstan?

 

SO much detail, and the state of preservation is up there with the Black Sea wrecks.

 

I look forward to hearing more about this one.

 

Steven

Some boards of the aftercastle remains in place (seen in the video in the link), and it is clinkerbuilt just like on the later large warships of the first half of the 16th century. It also appears to have the rusty remains of two iron guns(one on each side), still sticking out through their ports. And there is at least one more gunport further forward and another further aft, though without guns. 

 

This makes me wonder if she is actually a small warship (or at least commisioned as such) as opposed to a merchantman as reported in Swedish papers, my guess is from the period 1500-1550, or even 1520-1570 (lots of naval activities in this area in this  period, which should increase the probability of her having been parked down there). Six guns sounds too much for a merchantman of this size and age. I wonder what made them date her to the turn of the century (1500 that is), at least I can see nothing definite that would place her around either 1500 or 1550, for example. Anyway I bet they are wetting their pants in excitement over getting some wood up in order to date it, so we’ll know soon enough.

 

And yes, that’s a pump alright, and the deck of some platform can be seen around the foremast, which well could be that of a forecastle (it is wider than the hull forwards). 

 

Edited October 14, 2019 by Matle

[Matle]

And another one found, this one from the end of the 16th century found on land in Stockholm. There’s plenty of buried old wrecks due to post-glacial land rise and hulks used as filler for man-made land reclaiming, but this wreck was relatively large and previously unknown. Built of pine from Hälsingland, which made identification easy: the only one fitting the records was the Samson, a Royal armed merchant built in the transitionary phase with mixed building styles.

 

Sorry in Swedish, (and sorry it’s facebook), but there are some pics at least:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2705387142816085&id=129042917117200

 

 

The wreck has been documented and then covered and protected for the future.

Edited December 19, 2019 by Matle

[druxey]

Excellent 3D fly-around renderings on this site! There is an auto-translate feature that came up on my screen. Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Matle.