The fire spread quickly. This is what it’s like to handle gunpowder on the deck of a 15th century ship built with wood. The ship, identified as the Gribshunden, sank in 1495 at an anchorage near the island of Stora Ekön, located in the Blekinge archipelago (in southern Sweden), while returning from Kalmar.
It was the flagship of the fleet of Danish King Hans I, a veritable “floating castle” that was consumed by flames and ended up at a depth of just under ten meters, which means that the rigging protruded from the water and that it was probably The wreck was partially accessible through the ship’s structure.
Archaeological work carried out on the wreck, discovered in the 1970s but not identified until 2002, has determined that efforts were carried out to rescue the survivors (the crew was made up of a hundred German mercenaries) even using equipment medieval diving.
Despite all the years of activity at the site, researchers believe the wreck still has great potential, especially in terms of medieval shipbuilding, warfare and social structure. The latest discovery made, for example, represents a true maritime military revolution in Europe.
Archaeologists from Stockholm and Södertörn universities have determined that a chest discovered last spring among the wreckage of this warship contained tools for making lead shot for early firearms, suggesting key changes in the naval battles of The time.
As explained by Rolf Warming and Johan Rönnby in an academic article, this revolution indicates the development of warfare at sea, leaving aside the classic tactic of ramming enemy ships and generating hand-to-hand combat to move to a more modern system in the that hostile ships were attacked from a distance with gunfire.
Although the wreck is partially disintegrated, the seabed beams are very well preserved. Some of these beams belonged to the ship’s superstructure, including parts of the fore and aft castles, which served as raised fighting platforms. Specialists also identified two cannon carriages and a unique weapons chest that remains underwater.
“The contents of the chest are without a doubt one of the most important finds. It contains, among other things, several different molds and lead plates for making lead bullets for the first firearms. It is a toolbox of ammunition, probably belonging to the German mercenaries who were on board at the time of the sinking,” explains Rolf Warming.
“The ship is an important piece of the puzzle of the maritime military revolution that was implemented in the second half of the 17th century, in which the main tactics shifted from hand-to-hand combat to heavy naval artillery fire. That is why the ship will be compared along with other important and exceptionally preserved wrecks, such as the Mars (1564) and the Vasa (1628)”, Warming points out in a statement.
The study of the site also made it possible to find fragments of armor. Once in the lab, researchers determined that this chain mail used brass from the Bavarian city of Nuremberg and was woven together using various techniques. “This indicates that it was repaired on several occasions. Due to the dimensions of the preserved rings, this chain mail could have used up to 150,000 rings,” the experts conclude.
The Gribshunden sank while returning from the Swedish city of Kalmar, the place chosen to sign an agreement in 1397 (known as the Kalmar Union) that grouped Denmark, Norway and Sweden under a single monarch, Queen Margaret I. In 1495 , Hans I had been in the city trying to persuade the Swedish leaders to rejoin the union after a time when the agreement had been put on hold.
