The wrecks of two ships of the middle of the XIV century were discovered in the Swedish Warberg. They were found this spring during archaeological excavations before the construction of the railway tunnel. Wooden hulls of ships were found on the territory that in the Middle Ages was the coastline of the city of Getakyarr, the medieval predecessor of Varberg.
The found ships are koggs — the main type of ships of the Hanseatic League used in the Baltic and North Seas. The first mention of this type of vessel dates back to 948, but according to archaeological data, it appeared about two hundred years earlier. The single-masted vessel with a straight sail and a flat bottom had no keel, so it could float in shallow water and was easily operated by a small crew, although it was capable of carrying up to 90 tons of cargo. The length of the cogs ranged from 15 to 25 meters. In the second half of the XIV century, a variety of cogs with three masts appeared.
One of the Varberg cogs turned out to be the largest and best preserved cogg ever found in Sweden. The left side of the ship is almost completely preserved, about 20 meters long and 5 meters wide, its ballast is still in place. The remains of the hull, about 8 meters long and 4.5 meters wide, have been preserved from the second kogg.
Currently, the dendrochronological analysis of the first wood samples from both ships has been completed. The analysis of the annual rings showed that the wood for the first log was cut down in 1346 somewhere in the Netherlands, Belgium or in the north-east of France. The wood used to build the second log was cut down between 1355 and 1357 in northern Poland. This suggests that they were not local ships, but arrived from afar. It is unclear why they sank.
Archaeologists have found a number of everyday objects left by the crews of ships and well preserved in waterlogged soil. Among them are leather shoes, wooden spoons and bowls, parts of barrels, and a significant amount of rigging and other elements of ship equipment were also found on the first log.
