A 700-year-old ship that was part of the Hanseatic League – a powerful trading network formed in 1356 that stretched from England to Russia – has been found just five feet beneath the streets of Tallinn.
The 80ft-long vessel, thought to be a 13th-century Hanseatic cog, was found during construction work in the Estonian capital.
The ship was the workhorse of the Hanseatic League, which at its zenith even waged war to protect its members’ interests.
Surviving examples are rare, with the most famous example being the Bremen Cog discovered in Germany in 1962.
But archaeologist Mihkel Tammet said the newly-discovered wreck was in even better condition than its renowned cousin.
‘The ship is 24 metres long and nine metres wide. The boards are intact up to three meters from the bottom of the ship.
‘It is built using mᴀssive oak logs and planks. The ship has overlapping planking, sealed with animal hair and tar.
‘We have found wool material used for packing, we have also found some tools and fragments of medieval leather shoes.
‘Excavations are ongoing and we hope to find more.’
A dendrochronology test on the wood has dated the wreck to 1298 – 82 years older than the Bremen Cog.
The ship was found five feet (1.5 metres) underground at a site near Tallinn harbour, close to the former mouth of the Härjapea River – a waterway that no longer exists.
Another historic wreck had been found 164ft (50 metres) away in 2008, so when construction began on a new office building, Tammet was called upon to supervise in case of further discoveries.
He explained that the whole area had once been underwater.
‘This area was still under the sea in the 18th century,’ he said.
‘800 years ago we had almost two metres of water here.
‘There were probably shallower underwater sand ridges which were hard to map because they changed their shape and location because of ice drifts and storms.
‘Our ship was found on one of these ridges under the sediments. It sank close to the Härjapea river mouth.’
Upon seeing the wreck, Tammet called in Ragnar Nurk, an archaeologist with the Tallinn city government.
Nurk said the cog would be now taken to a new home.
‘The wreck will be removed from its current position to allow the construction work to continue,’ he said.
‘There are two main options currently: it will go to the maritime museum or to the wreck preservation area in Tallinn Bay near Naissaar Island.
‘Unfortunately the size and restricted conditions of construction do not let us to move the ship away in one part.’
At its peak, the Hanseatic League boasted among its members guilds and towns from Russia to the Netherlands, while also having satellite outposts in several English cities.
It dominated the exchange of goods between the north-east and the north-west of Europe, transporting raw materials such as furs, wax, grain, fish, flax, hemp, wood and timber products such as pitch, tar and potato from the East to the West, as well as cloths, metal goods, weapons and spices to the East.
