Divers are used to the timbers of old shipwrecks being the first to disappear, leaving only metal behind. In the case of the Gribshunden, wrought-iron artefacts such as the guns have gone after 530 years immersed in Baltic waters, but leaving the timbers remarkably well-preserved.
Now maritime archaeologists from Sweden’s Lund University have succeed in recreating those lost late-mediaeval guns, using the wooden gun-beds recovered by divers from the historic wreck – and the weapons turn out to be quite unlike the sort of artillery used on later warships.
The Gribshunden (Griffin-Hound) carried at least 50 small-calibre guns designed to fire lead shot with an iron core at close range, to kill or maim enemy crew while in the process of boarding a vessel.
The gun-beds of 11 of these “anti-personnel“ weapons have been recovered and used to digitally recreate the iron guns, while other artillery elements have been left on the wreck.
Floating castle
The flagship of the Danish-Norwegian King Hans, Gribshunden is thought to have been built near Rotterdam in the Netherlands from around 1483 and delivered by 1486, at an estimated cost of about 8% of the Danish national budget.
Hans made the ship his “floating castle”, say the archaeologists, often sailing to Sweden and all around Denmark and Norway. It sank in mysterious circumstances off Ronneby in Sweden in 1495, as the king headed from Copenhagen to a meeting in Sweden at which he had expected to unify the entire Nordic region.
According to historical accounts, King Hans was in Ronneby while his ship was anchored offshore. An explosion occurred onboard, and fire overwhelmed the ship.
Of the 22 pieces of lead artillery shot found around the wreck, several have been flattened on one or two sides, possibly because, stored in the hold near the gunpowder, the explosion had caused them to ricochet inside the ship.
Gribshunden is the only known example of a carvel warship from the Age of Exploration, the time of Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama.
Both the ship and the artillery elements found with it are almost identical to those used by early Spanish and Portuguese explorers, and help to explain how they managed their voyages to colonise distant parts of the world, say the archaeologists.
“Diving on this late mediaeval royal shipwreck is of course exciting,” says maritime archaeologist and lead author Brendan Foley, who collaborated with Lund University archaeologist Martin Hansson and British mediaeval-artillery expert Kay Douglas Smith on the study.
“However, the greatest satisfaction is when we can actually put the pieces of the puzzle together later on; combining Martin’s castle expertise with Kay’s deep understanding of artillery.” Prof Nicolo Dell’Unto led the team that created 3D models of the guns.
Pope’s influence
Despite the Viking and Nordic history of western exploration, and possessing competitive ocean-going vessels such as Gribshunden, Denmark did not compete with Spain and Portugal in expanding to the Americas at the time.
The archaeologists say that not only was King Hans preoccupied with consolidating his rule over the Baltic region but might have been influenced by a 1493 papal decree granting Spain rights to the Americas, as well as a treaty under which Spain ceded the Indian Ocean to Portugal.
The project was conducted in collaboration with Blekinge Museum, Vikingeskibsmueet and the municipality of Ronneby, where plans are said to be underway to create a dedicated Gribshunden museum. The study is published in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology.
