An extraordinary 500-year-old shipwreck is rewriting the history of the Age of Discovery... In the frigid Baltic Sea, archaeologists probing the surprisingly well-preserved remains of a revolutionary warship are seeing the era in a new way
At the southern edge of Sweden, not far from the picturesque town of Ronneby, lies a tiny island called Stora Ekon. Sprinkled with pine trees, sheep and a few deserted holiday cottages, the low-lying island is one of hundreds that shelter the coast from the storms of the Baltic Sea. For centuries, the spot was a popular anchorage point, but the waters are now mostly quiet; the most prominent visitors, apart from the occasional pleasure boat, are migrating swans.
For a few weeks in May, however, a new island intruded on this peaceful scene: A square wood raft topped with two converted shipping containers just a few hundred feet from Stora Ekon’s shoreward coast. The floating platform was busy with divers and archaeologists, here to explore what lies beneath the waves: the wreck of a ship called Gribshunden, a spectacular “floating castle” that served as the royal flagship of King Hans of Denmark more than 500 years ago. Historical sources record how the ship sank in the summer of 1495, along with a large contingent of soldiers and Danish noblemen, although not the king himself, who was ashore at the time.
Shipwrecks from this period are exceedingly rare. Unless a ship is buried quickly by sediment, the wood is eaten away over the centuries by shipworm, actually a type of saltwater clam. But these organisms don’t survive in the fresher waters of the Baltic, and archaeologists believe that much of Hans’ vessel and its contents are preserved. That promises them an unprecedented look at the life of a medieval king who was said to travel with an abundance of royal possessions, not only food and clothing but weapons, tools, textiles, documents and precious treasures. More than that, the relic provides a unique opportunity to examine a state-of-the-art warship from a little-understood period, when a revolution in shipbuilding and naval warfare was reshaping geopolitics and transforming civilization. What Gribshunden represents, researchers think, is nothing less than the end of the Middle Ages and the birth of the modern world.
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https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histo...tm_source=digg