Found: Medieval Cargo Ship – Largest Vessel of Its Kind Ever(www.smithsonianmag.com)
107 pointsby bookofjoe8 hours ago7 comments
  • mikkupikku4 hours ago
    > Its planks are made of Pomeranian oak from modern-day Poland, and the wood of its frame came from the Netherlands.

    I'm surprised the raw materials came together over such a distance. That transporting lumber was economical back then is remarkable.

    • Duanemclemore3 hours ago
      Check out the History of the Germans season on the Hanseatic League [0]. The bulk goods trade was in the Baltic / Northern Europe was actually huge. The Hansa themselves traded all the way from London to Novgorod. Anyway, it's an absolutely fascinating subject and period.

      [0] https://historyofthegermans.com/hanseatic-league/

    • twic4 hours ago
      Well, as the article says:

      > Per the statement, the large vessels were made to sail north from the Netherlands, around Denmark and toward the Baltic Sea. [...] Uldum adds that shipbuilders made the cogs as large as possible to transport bulky cargo, like timber

      Once you've built one cog, you've got the ideal tool to fetch Polish timber to build more!

      • nickpinkston14 minutes ago
        Yea, this is like the early railroads making steel cheaper via cheaper transport of bulk ore/coal, that made cheaper railroads, that then ship more products made of steel to larger markets opened by the extended rail networks, etc.

        This happened with tin all the way back in the Bronze Age, where a lot of it was shipped as ingots from industrial-scale mines / smelters in Cornwall all the way to the Mediterranean empires to mix with copper to make Bronze.

        A cog-based auto-catalytic wood industry is super interesting.

    • namenotrequiredan hour ago
      I’m more surprised we can tell so precisely where wood that spent 600 years under the sea came from
    • IncreasePosts3 hours ago
      You might be interested in tin transport during the bronze age then - You'll find tin mined in Cornwall in ships that sank off the coast of Turkey 3500 years ago.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_sources_and_trade_during_a...

    • benj1112 hours ago
      Is it possible the ship was rebuilt?
      • tokai2 hours ago
        No the wood is also dated.
        • evereverever2 hours ago
          Too wet to be on tinder though.
          • cardamomoan hour ago
            Dendrochronology-based age verification is coming soon
  • mmooss5 hours ago
    Is there a paper somewhere?

    Statement from the Viking Museum:

    https://www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk/en/about-us/news-and-press...

    Documentary referenced in the statement (I think):

    https://www.dr.dk/drtv/episode/gaaden-i-dybet_-fra-ukendt-ha...

    • tokai3 hours ago
      No. It's going to take some time, and theres a good change it'll come as a danish language monography or one or more phd thesis'.
  • asymmetric2 hours ago
    > On its stern, researchers were shocked to find extensive remains of a castle, a kind of covered deck where the crew would have sought shelter. Records show that castles were distinctive features of medieval cogs, but no physical evidence of them had previously been identified.

    I suppose this explains why the thing that exists on more modern ships is called a “forecastle”.

    PS go check the pronunciation for that word as it’s quite surprising.

  • alberth5 hours ago
    Who would have guessed the Smithsonian of all organizations would have so many video popup ads.

    Isn’t the greatest experience on mobile when so little of the content can be seen due to popups.

    • quinncom4 hours ago
      Smithsonian Mag used to be the Institution’s brain‑child, now it’s just a click‑bait lifestyle tabloid full of celebs. The magazine’s editorial directives have diverged from the institutions mission. They care more about pageviews and ads than research.
    • dyauspitr4 hours ago
      I can appreciate their troubles. How is someone supposed to pay for all the overhead that goes into research and writing these articles without a source of income. People also seem dead against subscriptions. The only way that seems to work is appealing to the LCD and raking in stream bucks but not all media/literature, especially the valuable kind, is conducive to that model.
    • Zardoz844 hours ago
      Ads ? What Ads...

      I forgot that I use Firefox for Android with uBlock Origin. I don't see any ads NEVER.

      • stronglikedan3 hours ago
        > I don't see any ads NEVER

        So you see some ads occasionally? Then why are you asking "what ads"?

  • einpoklum4 hours ago
    This is the kind of ship they found:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cog_(ship)

    larger ships in the later middle ages were the Caravel and the Carrack, which typically had more than a single mast.

  • paulnpace4 hours ago
    Amazingly under only 40' of water.
    • patall3 hours ago
      The baltic has tons of wrecks. Because of its brackishness, both marine and fresh water wood decomposing organism dont survive there and thus old ships got preserved really really well. Some are in really shallow (walkable) water, especially in areas where the land is rising.
    • Someone4 hours ago
      That may be not that amazing for a shipwreck in the Øresund. According to Wikipedia, its maximum depth is 40m (130’) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Øresund), so chances are a lot of it is less deep. There also may be sampling bias, with shipwrecks in shallower water being more likely to be found, and, if the tides flow faster in deeper water, survivorship bias.
      • bluGill3 hours ago
        ships are less likely to wreck in deep water. Storms can sill overturn them (though if they are unstable getting to deep water is questionable). You mostly expect wrecks from hitting rocks on the bottom. Though in war time sinking happens in deep water.
  • dgan6 hours ago
    Patrician II/III anyone? One of the best games of my childhood, sweet memories