1500 Ghost Ship Discovered Buried Underground

They found a “ghost” ship, in excellent condition, at the bottom of a quarry. It is one of the few relics of ancient British maritime history.

Over the centuries, they have found shipwrecks many times, lost forever in the darkness of the deep sea. Still, there are ghost ships of great value to our history, and a 16th-century Elizabethan ship, for example, has been discovered by a team of archaeologists and will now be examined.

What is so special about this ship? First, they found it in an underground quarry. She is also very rare for a ship of her time and will give historians and scientists the opportunity to learn about a very fascinating period in British maritime history.

Found a Ghost Ship

As is often the case with archaeological finds, the discovery of the Elizabethan vessel had nothing to do with a special excavation and was completely accidental. In April 2022, to be precise, a building materials company was carrying out routine work in a quarry in Dungeness, County Kent. The workers were digging when they came across something strange: wooden finds.

Workers stopped their routine work and began excavating part of the ship, leaving the rest buried. They then then alerted Kent County Council (i.e. the larger local authority) that further guidance was needed to avoid damage. As a result, Historic England, the Digital Department’s office, took immediate action.

Historic England has invited a team of highly skilled researchers from Wessex Archaeology, the UK’s leading archaeological society, to investigate the site. Archaeologists quickly figured out that the remains belonged to a ghost ship that disappeared between 1558 and 1580 and that, for whatever reason, it must have been in shallow water at the time and had run aground right there.

Scientists also don’t rule out that the ship sank on a pebble-covered promontory or that it was deliberately abandoned because it was too old to function. For archaeologists however, this is a tremendous find, as it will provide a better understanding of the development of Kent’s coast, shipping and ports.

The Importance of The Elizabethan Ship

The ship was made of oak and built on a frame. In reality, the internal skeleton preceded the other parts and was then covered with more wood. The fact that the vessel was built using this technique has surprised archaeologists.

It is in fact the work that characterized a ship that would have explored the world in the Elizabethan era and that would have established a route towards the Atlantic coasts of the New World.

According to the researchers, the ship (which appears to have over 100 perfectly preserved planks and hull parts) can tell a lot about an era of which very little is known today.

This article is written by Daniela Paolucci originally published on viaggi.nanopress.it