Marine archaeologists have recently uncovered the remains of a ship that may be one of the oldest shipwrecks in Norway, specialist media report.
Said to be more than 700 years old, the ship was found while mapping a lake to locate tons of explosives dumped there by a munitions factory between the 1940s and 1970s, reports Science Norway.
The discovery was made on Lake Mjosa, the country’s largest, and sonar images show the wooden boat’s hull, about 10 meters long and 2.5 meters wide, at a depth of about 410 meters.
The shape of the ship suggests that it was built about seven centuries ago, shortly after the Viking ship transition, according to Oyvind Odegard, a marine archaeologist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
So far, scientists only have access to sonar imagery, “but the data shows there’s an outline of something that could potentially be a stern, and if that’s the case then there wasn’t.” [barcos de ese tipo] up to the year 1300,” explains the expert.
To reach such a conclusion, a three-dimensional model of the wreck was created from various acoustic images.
Odegard suggested that the ship would have had a single mast with a square sail, much like a Viking ship, but apparently had a central rudder instead of the traditional Viking rudder, which was located on the right side of the hull.
Archaeologists noted that in the early 12th-13th centuries, Lake Mjosa was the scene of important naval battles and served as a route for transporting goods to or from Oslo.
Because of this, researchers believe they will find more ships under its waters in the future.
(With information from RT)