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Off the shore of Lindau in Lake Constance, underwater archaeologists have discovered wooden parts of a shipwreck that appear to be much older than initially assumed.
“The tip came from a recreational diver who knows the area well. He had already suspected that it might be a wreck,” reports research diver in underwater archaeology Prof Dr Tobias Pflederer in response to a Euronews enquiry. By profession he is a cardiologist in Kaufbeuren and a professor at the University of Erlangen, and he also serves as honorary president of the Bavarian Society for Underwater Archaeology (BGfU).
“What was particularly exciting was that we were really able to identify the remains of wood as a wreck. That was not clear from the outset; they could have been other pieces of timber. But once several frames and remains of the hull were protruding from the lake bed, the interpretation quickly became clear,” explains Pflederer.
A frame is a load-bearing structural component of a boat, ship or aircraft. Connected frames form the body of a ship, like ribs. The BGfU’s underwater archaeologists had previously found several, much heavier dugout canoes in Lake Constance and also in Lake Chiemsee, some of which are on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich.
The newly discovered medieval vessel is apparently between eight and twelve metres long. The width of its hull is around three metres.
The frames and other wooden elements in Lake Constance, Germany’s largest inland body of water, were found off Lindau near the border with Austria. The opposite shore belongs to Switzerland.
Already last year, and before the recent heatwaves, water levels in Lake Constance were at a historic low.
A shipwreck from the late Middle Ages
What really surprised the underwater archaeologists was the age of the wreck. “We had actually expected it to be dated to the modern era. Although there are already some wrecks from the late Middle Ages in Lake Constance, there are still only a few – four so far. The wreck can therefore provide further insights into shipbuilding and navigation on Lake Constance in the late Middle Ages.”
Analysis of a small wood sample – carried out in consultation with the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments – showed that the wreck dates from between AD 1420 and 1450, as the Schwäbische Zeitung also reports.
Underwater archaeologist Pflederer is keen to play down the discovery: “So far we have carried out only two dives and made merely an initial survey, that is, producing orthophotographs and taking a wood sample from one of the frames. Using radiocarbon (C14) dating, the wreck could then be assigned to the 15th century AD.”
Salvaging the wreck would be extremely costly
Unlike the spectacular discovery of a Roman-era cargo in Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, there are currently no plans to raise the wreck from Lake Constance.
Pflederer says: “Salvage always means that the parts of the wreck have to be professionally conserved and preserved. This is an enormously expensive undertaking. Moreover, nothing is more conserving and protective than leaving the wreck underwater, and better still under a cover of sediment. There is discussion of a possible small-scale excavation to identify the ship’s construction method and its precise dimensions.”
Further information on the association’s projects at several lakes can be found on the website of the Bavarian Society for Underwater Archaeology (source in German) (BGfU). The society has around 100 members, most of them volunteers. They include professional archaeologists and trained research divers, as well as students, experienced recreational divers and people who pursue underwater archaeology as a hobby.
Additional sources • Schwäbische Zeitung