Scientists have been wrong for 200 years: Viking ships at the bottom of the sea turned out to be something else entirely
A new discovery has seen the scientists' script flipped on what they knew.
Archaeologists from the Stockholm Shipwreck Museum hope to secure funding for further research and excavation of the relatively well-preserved ship, found 20 km off the coast and with several masts still attached, which they now doubt may have been a Viking ship.
“This ship represents a fascinating transition from medieval to modern shipbuilding.” Viking Age ships (and all other ships from the Nordic countries before that) were built with clinker, long planks of the hull overlapping each other; but in hand-built ships, they lie side by side.
A technique developed in the Mediterranean region, probably around the 7th century, it strengthened the hull, which became crucial when cannon became the most important weapon at sea and was causing havoc.
Since the 19th century, researchers believe that five ships from the Swedish archipelago date back to the Viking Age. New research, including 3D surveys, shows they are much younger and that one of them is likely the first of its kind in the Nordic region.
According to the latest archaeological research, four of the ships date from the 17th and 18th centuries, one of them being significantly older. Archaeologists at the Vrak Shipwreck Museum in Stockholm estimate that one of the remains dates back to between 1460 and 1480.
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