48x11 - Ship That Changed the World

[bunniefuu]

NARRATOR:
In icy Nordic waters,

a mysterious wreck.

BRENDAN FOLEY:
There's nothing else like it.

We've never seen anything else
like this archaeologically.

NARRATOR:
The long-lost warship

of a late medieval king.

JON ADAMS:
It's a statement of power...
it's floating propaganda.

NARRATOR:
Sunk under mysterious
circumstances

over 500 years ago.

What secrets does it hold?

How did it come to be here?

What cargo did it contain?

NIKLAS ERIKSSON:
We were jumping up and down

and said, "We have found a
figurehead!"

FOLEY:
That's great, unbelievable.

Yeah, it's amazing.

NARRATOR:
Written records of the time

described it as
a fearsome vessel.

FOLEY:
It was designed
to project power.

It was a floating castle.

NARRATOR:
More powerful than

the Viking ships that
preceded it.

How was it built to be so large?

ADAMS:
We got some things

we don't understand, frankly.

NARRATOR:
And could it have been part of

the technological revolution
that built

the great ships of exploration

that carried Columbus and others

across the Atlantic
and around the world?

Designed for
the same types of mission,

built in the same way.

This is our look at
what Columbus and his crew

actually experienced on
their voyages of exploration.

FILIPE CASTRO:
That's what makes this shipwreck
so important.

Because it's,
it's a treasure, in fact.

NARRATOR:
There's only one way
to find out...

Excavation time.

NARRATOR:
if it's the ship

that changed the world.

Right now, on "NOVA."

NARRATOR:
Stora Ekön.

A small island
off the coast of Sweden.

♪♪

Marine archaeologists
Brendan Foley...

Excavation time.

NARRATOR:
and Johan Rönnby...

along with a team of divers,

have come here to investigate

the crumbling timbers of a ship.

♪♪

It may not look like much,

but they suspect it may be
a rare type of warship.

Large portions of the wreck
appear to still be intact.

I can see a ship!

I can see the bow, the stern,

the ribs... I can see a ship.

NARRATOR:
Visible in the sediment,

several tell-tale items.

FOLEY:
There are artifacts emerging.

Saw a nice lead cannonball.

NARRATOR:
And an oddly carved
piece of wood,

possibly the remnant
of a g*n carriage...

[fires]

built to hold
an early type of cannon.

Its distinctive design suggests
that this object

dates back to the late
medieval era, 500 years ago,

a time of castles
and armored knights

and the first stirrings
of the European Renaissance.

It's the period of Michelangelo
and Leonardo da Vinci,

and it's this period
in European history

where a lot of things
are changing.

NARRATOR:
And yet, ironically,
this ship

may have been hiding in
plain sight since the 1970s,

when amateur divers

first stumbled across it

without realizing
what they'd found.

CHRISTER FORBERG:
Fishermen had told
that every time

they was fishing at this place,

they got stuck
with the equipment.

FORBERG:
And they say,
"We go down here and look."

And Neesa got down,

and when he come up,
he said to me, "I don't know.

Must be some, a wreck."

NARRATOR:
That in and of itself
wasn't unusual...

Shipwrecks are common
in these waters.

And then archaeologist
Niklas Eriksson

found a strange artifact,

and the wreck started to
make headlines.

ERIKSSON:
So I was swimming back and forth

and having a look at

the loose timbers that are lying
scattered around there.

I found a thick beam.

After removing some sediments,

we came back to the surface

and we were jumping up and down
and said,

"We have found a figurehead!"

It was, it was quite amazing.

NARRATOR:
Centuries ago, this bizarre,
intricately carved figurehead

would have been one of the
ship's key identifying features.

♪♪

It's clearly
some kind of monster,

similar to
the fantastical creatures

that often adorned
old Viking ships.

In its jaws, a screaming man.

RÖNNBY:
I think it's, you can see it
as part of

the psychological warfare,
really, because this is

the first thing you meet
when it's coming.

FOLEY:
As propaganda goes,

this is pretty powerful stuff.

NARRATOR:
But the figurehead alone

was not enough to
make a positive I.D.

Military historian
Ingvar Sjöblom

soon put the clues together.

It was probably a very rich man

that, that could, could have
the money to build

a large ship of this size.

NARRATOR:
Along with other clues
gleaned from the wreckage,

the figurehead
and g*n carriages suggest

that this could be the flagship
of a Danish king named Hans.

Over 500 years ago,

the monarch was famous for
building a large naval fleet

led by a massive warship known
as the Gribshunden...

"the Griffin Dog."

FOLEY:
It's the capital ship
of King Hans.

It's the aircraft carrier.

It's the ballistic m*ssile
submarine.

It's a statement of power...
It's floating propaganda.

Now I really understand
what's down there.

NARRATOR:
Four chronicles mention
Gribshunden by name,

as does a single
eyewitness account,

written by a young nobleman
who survived the ship's sinking.

They report that in 1495,

the Griffin Dog
came to this island

seeking shelter,
before sinking...

[expl*si*n]

under strange circumstances.

♪♪

FOLEY:
The finds yesterday were

really exciting,
quite spectacular,

and I think we're going to have

the same today, so...

NARRATOR:
Now, Foley and Rönnby

are preparing to uncover
this ship's secrets.

The work won't be easy.

Though the wreck
is not in deep water,

it's mostly covered in
heavy sediment.

Excavating requires a
highly skilled support team

and extreme caution.

You'll be told who is the
dive leader for that rotation,

and their word is God.

NARRATOR:
To keep them safe as they work,

dive safety officer Phil Short
and his crew

will monitor
the divers at all times.

SHORT:
It is a shallow site,

but you can't breathe water
at nine meters or 90,

so safety is
absolutely paramount.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
Their base of operations

is a 30-foot dive boat

hauling up to ten divers
and their gear.

MAN:
We can jump in the water
and get to work.

And you can take samples.

NARRATOR:
A temporary lab back on shore

is set up to process
any artifacts they recover.

♪♪

Their time is limited.

They only have the dive boat

and this team together
for 16 days.

♪♪

Their first objective

is to understand
how much of the ship

is still intact
beneath the sediment.

RÖNNBY:
We have to excavate
further down.

So we have to remove
the silt around it

so you can get
the whole structure of it.

NARRATOR:
The first step is to
expose the cargo hold,

all the way down to the hull,

itself a critical clue.

Only once the sediment
is stripped away

will they get a sense of
what kind of ship this was

and what it was carrying.

But before they remove
a single handful of sediment,

the archaeologists
need to create

a virtual copy of
the undisturbed wreck.

Each day,
a pair of photographers

films and photographs the site.

High-definition video offers

a detailed visual record of
the archaeological work.

♪♪

While a second camera records
thousands of stills.

BRETT SEYMOUR:
So basically what I'm doing is,

I, I physically have a camera,
an underwater camera,

and I'm just swimming
back and forth

in a rather systematic way,
back and forth on the site.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
The roughly 4,000 images
are then run through

a program
that stitches them together,

producing a 3D model in a
process called photogrammetry.

SEYMOUR:
And then the last step is,

we basically take and
we lay the photographs on top

to give it
a photorealistic view.

NARRATOR:
Each day, fresh images of
the site will be captured,

allowing archaeologists to

digitally retrace their steps

even after excavation
is complete.

So we'll see where things
came from in the 3D space.

And I think that's the really,
really interesting thing

about this technique,

is that we can see this
every day.

SEYMOUR: Yeah, mm-hmm.
PACHECO-RUIZ:
Which is fantastic.

You can see the progress.

NARRATOR:
Mapping expert Paola Derudas

can use this first model
to create

an even more detailed version.

Yet even now,
they can clearly see

the first major obstacle:

piles of loose decking
blocking their access

to the lower levels of the ship.

ADAMS:
A complete ship

would be easy to understand
for what it is.

But if you imagine
the top half to two thirds

of that ship essentially
sort of taken apart

and collapsed in on itself,

what you've got then

is the seabed scattered
with timbers

lying in all directions,
and it looks very confusing.

NARRATOR:
Like a game of pick-up-sticks,

each timber
must be moved out of the way

without shifting or damaging
the rest of the wreck.

FOLEY:
It has to be very
carefully controlled,

because sooner or later,
we're going to come across

an area where there are

particularly valuable things.

A marine deposit like this,
it's very insubstantial,

it's very, it's not compact.

It's soft.

The challenge is
to actually excavate that

with enough precision

to not damage anything,

not lose anything, and derive

as much of the archaeological
information as possible.

NARRATOR:
So the team installs
scaffolding.

ADAMS:
We'll move it into the wreck,

so it ends up here.

NARRATOR:
Not only to minimize damage
to the site,

but to map the location of
artifacts and other features.

FOLEY:
We're all set up,
we're ready to roll.

We're going to excavate.

It's what we're here to do!

♪♪

NARRATOR:
But as soon as they set out,

they run into a problem.

The conditions are terrible.

It's really easy
to stir up the sediment.

Destroyed visibility
to virtually zero.

NARRATOR:
Their only option:

to use a hand-held dredge...

Essentially,
an underwater vacuum...

To try to direct the powdery
sediment away from the site.

ADAMS:
Dredge is working beautifully.

The visibility's fantastic.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
And then, finally,

they spot something significant
in the clearing mud.

Chain mail.
MAN:
Wow.

It's really, really fragile.

And it's within leather,
as well.

ROLF WARMING:
Oh, that's beautiful.

MAN:
Oh, wow.
Lovely.

And it's all clumped together,
this, they're all rings.

Mm.

WARMING:
It could be
the end of a sleeve,

and then it could've been
connected to mail of iron.

NARRATOR:
Incredibly, it's a fragment of
medieval chain mail,

possibly worn by a soldier,
or even a medieval knight.

That, that bit is uncorroded.

NARRATOR:
It's an astonishingly
lucky find.

Sea water is
brutally corrosive to metals.

WARMING:
Usually aboard ships,

you have heavy infantry,

and at this time, it was typical

for the heavy infantry
to wear plate armor,

and also some mail,
which is great protection

against swords and other sorts
of, of weaponry.

NARRATOR:
Not far away,

additional evidence of warfare.

And you saw the,
the lead shot.
Oh, yeah.

From the g*n, cannonball.

Yeah, that was fantastic.

NARRATOR:
Cannonballs

and more g*n carriages.

[g*n fires]

SJOBLÖM:
We have found

nine g*n carriages that is
salvaged.

We know that it's
others down in the wreck.

NARRATOR:
The weapons themselves are gone,
salvaged or rusted away.

But the carriages
offer some insight.

FOLEY:
The wrought-iron g*ns are really
the predecessors to, to cannons.

So, they've only got
a bore of maybe three inches,

but that's
a big g*n for the time.

NARRATOR:
They are some of the earliest
cannon-like weapons

to be adapted for naval warfare.

Yet the records are unclear if
they were ever used in combat.

Only five historical sources
Describe Gribshunden,

with few details.

Instead, most of the focus
is on King Hans himself.

When we look at
the written sources,

they describe King Hans
as witty, as wealthy,

as kind of a happy-go-lucky man,

and they even describe
his good looks.

NARRATOR:
Hans, like other European rulers
at the time,

was fighting to establish
his supremacy.

These guys really needed to show
that they were powerful kings,

and having a big ship,

with a lot of flags and paint
and so on,

it's a way to show that
you're something special.

BRÄNNSTEDT:
I think this is one of the
reason why King Hans

is so keen to have
this kind of ship,

to really demonstrate his power.

NARRATOR:
Records show that Hans
took his massive new warship

on diplomatic voyages
to Norway, down to England...

Perhaps even farther, to
Nordic colonies in the west.

BRÄNNSTEDT:
We have to imagine the ship
as a novelty,

something perhaps hereto unseen
in the Nordic countries,

and the fact that
King Hans uses this ship,

this is something he'd do

in order to make
a political statement.

NARRATOR:
In 1495, records show
Hans outfitted his warship

for yet another expedition,
this time to Sweden,

when an unexpected storm
forced him

to take shelter near the island

of Stora Ekön.

Which must have been
a very good place to anchor,

because it's quite open sea

outside of the island,
but if you go around it,

on the inside,
it's quite shelter.

It's a good anchor place.

NARRATOR:
The records disagree
on what happened next.

But based on the artifacts
the team is now finding,

it appears Hans was
prepared for a fight.

Weaponry continues to emerge...

This time, a crossbow.

ADAMS:
Crossbow.

Has a crossbow bolt with it.

Wow, wow!
[laughs]

FOLEY:
It's a really interesting

time period,
where you still have...

Exactly.
The bow and string weapons.

Yeah.
When you're getting the
projectile weapons

with gunpowder.

NARRATOR:
Though the Gribshunden
did have larger g*ns,

records are unclear whether
handheld firearms were used.

Instead, King Hans
likely relied on crossbows.

WARMING:
We know from 1507

that King Hans,
he stipulates that

half of the crew members,
or half of the soldiers,

they would be equipped
with crossbows

and the other half with lances.

NARRATOR:
Though not as advanced
as gunpowder weapons,

they were no less dangerous
in the right hands.

More than strong enough

to penetrate
an enemy soldier's armor.

♪♪

LENA EKLUND:
It's absolutely deadly.

Chain mail, this can go through.

I've tested it.

[laughs]

[chuckling, speaking softly]

Hello, Lena.
Not bad.

Hey, I'm Brendan.
Hi, nice meeting you.

NARRATOR:
Lena Eklund is

a world champion
crossbow sh**ter,

beating both her
female and male competitors.

EKLUND:
In the rules, it says
that you have to name

the best woman, because
they think women won't win.

But last year, I did win, so
they had to name the best man.

[laughter]

NARRATOR:
Foley has brought her a 3D print
of the crossbow stock

recently found
onboard the Gribshunden.

FOLEY:
So I'm really curious to compare
it against your working bow.

Yeah, of course.

This is my stock.

You had to have
a stronger bow on that,

I think, than I have on mine.

MARKUS:
But how, how effective
would that be?

You could absolutely sh**t
through chain mail

and maybe through armor, too.

NARRATOR:
However, crossbows
couldn't be reloaded quickly.

On land, that meant taking cover
behind fortifications,

like castle walls,

while at sea, medieval drawings
show they relied on

floating castles.

It's possible
the planks the team found

scattered on
the surface of the wreck

are remnants of such a defense.

BENJAMIN ASMUSSEN:
I think this crossbow
helps establish the idea

of this ship as basically
a floating castle.

FOLEY:
That term forecastle goes back
to ships like Gribshunden

that quite literally
were floating castles.

They had ramparts
sort of built up

at the forward end
and at the aft end.

Sterncastle, forecastle.

NARRATOR:
These castles were
a critical element

not only for protecting
crossbowmen and soldiers,

but for attacking, as well.

ADAMS:
One tactic was to try and get
your forecastle,

which was
a big powerful structure

on the bow of the ship,

if you could get that

over the waist
of the other ship,

that would give you
an advantage.

You could sh**t down on the
decks.

They were literally, I mean,

you know, we use the term
floating castles.

They were.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
And then, they find something

truly unexpected.

Well, looks like a handgun.

The metal doesn't survive,
because iron degrades

in this sort of chemical
environment underwater.

But the wood survives very well.

That's fantastic,

'cause it's, it's in
such complete condition.

NARRATOR:
It's an arquebus,

one of the very earliest
handheld firearms.

Oh, let me tell you how excited
I am about that g*n,

very excited.

WARMING:
This is possibly
the, the oldest handgun

found on a shipwreck,
so it's absolutely unique.

NARRATOR:
It appears King Hans was
surrounded by

the most advanced weaponry

of the medieval era.

[fires]

What Gribshunden has
proven to be

is a combined arms platform.

We've got medieval
weapons like a crossbow,

even older weapons like
pikes and stabbing weapons,

but we've also got
this new thing,

these gunpowder weapons,
and that's really something.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
And yet, the team is
starting to suspect

that the most powerful weapon
in King Hans' arsenal

may have actually been
Gribshunden herself.

As they dig deeper
into the wreck,

Rönnby and Foley

suspect that this ship
may have been

one of the most
advanced vessels of her time.

The final proof
will be in the hull.

How was it constructed?

If this is the Griffin,
can it reveal anything

about the transition
from earlier ships,

like the smaller,
Viking-style craft,

to the super-sized
long-distance vessels

that would come to dominate
European fleets?

Previously, European ships
were built largely using

traditional designs
handed down for generations.

In Northern Europe,
where Gribshunden sank,

that meant building ships

much the same way
that the Vikings had built

their fearsome longboats.

One of the
most distinctive features of

these ships were their hulls.

ADAMS:
You can't mistake it.

You'll see the strakes,
if you'll notice,

this sort of line of planks
running from bow to stern.

And you can see
the ribbed appearance,

the sort of, the lapped
appearance.

NARRATOR:
A boat's hull is
essentially a shell

built around an interior
that is lighter than water,

which keeps it afloat.

For thousands of years,

northern shipwrights
built their "shells"

in a very distinctive way.

RÖNNBY:
This is a long, long tradition
for almost 2,000 years,

to build boats like this.

And typical for that
is that you have

the boarding planking
overlapping like this, this way,

and then you put a nail through
the, through the planks

to keep them together.

NARRATOR:
Known as clinker hulls,

they rely on long planks of wood
that are slightly overlapped

and then squeezed together

with rivets

to produce a sturdy,
seaworthy wooden shell.

Once the outer planks
were in place,

internal supports were added
to give it additional strength.

These ships were
typically equipped with

a single mast and square sail.

CASTRO:
The use of the
single square sail

in the north of Europe, again,
goes back many centuries.

It's a technology that was
very well-controlled,

very well-known, and
very simple to operate.

A big square sail of the period
would've been better at

driving the ship
with the following winds.

NARRATOR:
The resulting ship is light

due to its thin planks
and fasteners,

sitting high in the water
and reducing drag.

ADAMS:
They were excellent sea craft.

They ride with the waves,
they don't smash through them.

NARRATOR:
But their design also
makes them flexible.

KROUM BATCHVAROV:
Years ago, when they were still
building the replica

of the long Viking ship
from Roskilde,

the master shipwright,

he grabbed one of the posts
and shook it,

and you could see
the entire vessel waving

all the way to the end,
the other end.

It is that flexible.

NARRATOR:
But this flexibility is

also one the major limitations
of the clinker design.

As ship size increases,
flexibility becomes the enemy.

CASTRO:
Boats should not be flexible.

The history of shipbuilding
is the history of

making sturdier
and less flexible hulls.

NARRATOR:
With the introduction of
heavy cannons,

clinker ships faced serious
stability and stress issues.

As the stresses increase with
the size of the vessel,

the fasteners
that you need to use

to put these planks together

are going to become less sturdy.

They start making water.

NARRATOR:
Much larger than the
typical Viking ship,

the Gribshunden seems
to have also been sturdy.

In fact, as the chronicles show,

King Hans used it to make
multiple ocean voyages.

And that is what intrigues
the archaeological team.

This ship must have been built

using a different kind
of construction.

The archaeologists need
to uncover the ship's hull

and interior structures
to learn more.

[indistinct chatter]

[ringing]

NARRATOR:
After shifting the timbers

blocking access to the lower
levels of the ship,

the team can now begin
excavating in earnest.

RÖNNBY:
And I'm actually going to

excavate on the
outside of the ship,

for about taking that down
as deep as possible.

FOLEY:
The excavation is going
very very quickly now.

We have four highly competent

teams of excavators.

Now it's starting to
become clear.

Now we can see exactly
where we are in the ship.

NARRATOR:
If they want to figure out

exactly how unique
the Gribshunden was,

they need to uncover a key piece
of the ship's structure...

Its hull.

But given their constraints,

they'll only be able to excavate
within a narrow area

marked by the frame
they've placed amidships.

ADAMS:
The middle of the ship,

in terms of the hull design,

it's the most diagnostic place.

So we wanted to get a look
at the structure at that point.

It's always hard
to know where, where to dig.

We wanted to have quite a lot
of the interior of the ship,

so it's a combination of, get
so much ship construction

as possible, but also get
the inside of it, the cargo.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
And then,

a new problem.

MAN:
Some of it's missing.

MAN 2:
We are missing a part over here.

NARRATOR:
They're looking for
the hull of the ship,

and where it connects
to the internal structure...

Its skeleton.

If they succeed, it could be
the earliest hull segment

of a ship of this period
ever discovered.

But something isn't right.

[exhales]

We've been wondering, since
we started,

the inside of the ship
meets the frames here.

So the frame... this is the hull
of the ship curving up here.

And we always wondered, there's
collapsed timbers all around,

and we don't understand,
frankly, what happened

to the hull above this point.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
Looking at the wreck, they
suspect that the missing section

of hull was not built
using the local clinker style,

like the Vikings used.

That wouldn't have been
sturdy enough.

But there is a possible
alternative

for this ship's construction...

A style found hundreds of miles
away, in the Mediterranean.

♪♪

For thousands of years,
Egyptians,

Romans, and others all used
a similar template

for their ships.

The ways of building ships
go back to at least

the early third millennium BC.

So that's nearly 3,000 BC.

NARRATOR:
But the Romans and
their neighbors used

an entirely different approach
to hull construction.

Could the Griffin have been
built like a Roman ship?

The clue is in the planks.

♪♪

Unlike clinker hulls,
where the planks are overlapped,

the ships used by the Romans and
others had planks laid flush,

then locked together
using dowels and joints

similar to those sometimes used
in furniture.

BATCHVAROV:
The planks are carved,
they are each fastened

to each other with mortise
and tenon joinery.

And it's been called
by some people cabinetry

rather than carpentry.

But it works.

NARRATOR:
Like clinker hulls,
this outer shell

was strengthened afterwards
with internal supports.

The result was a smooth-sided
hull that was incredibly sturdy

but labor-intensive.

They would last forever,

but they were very difficult
to build.

Very expensive to build,
many man-hours.

So, whoever were the guys
that were carving,

they had to be experienced.

NARRATOR:
As a result,
by the medieval period,

shipbuilders began changing
their methods.

ADAMS:
This technique that's lasted

for three-and-a-half to four
thousand years

gradually starts changing.

They've started to morph
into something else.

NARRATOR:
Instead of building
the sturdy outer hull,

and then adding internal frames
afterwards,

shipbuilders began experimenting
with the reverse,

starting with the internal
frames first.

ADAMS:
It doesn't sound a particularly
radical move,

but if you think about it,

you've got to know the shape
of your ship to cut the frames

to put the planks on.

NARRATOR:
This skeleton-first style
was more technically challenging

to design, but allowed
shipwrights to control

a vessel's shape more
precisely...

And thus its desired features,

such as speed, size,
and cargo capacity.

BATCHVAROV:
You're controlling the shape
of the vessel by building

the frame structure first.

There is geometry.

There are understandings
of physics that go into it.

NARRATOR:
Allowing them to build
larger vessels.

This is the craft
of shipwrightry

becoming the science
of naval architecture.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
One type of ship to use
this more robust engineering

was called a caravel,

possibly imported
from the Arab world.

[laughing]:
The Arabs were amazing sailors.

It's very possible that caravels
could have been invented

in the northern shore of Africa.

NARRATOR:
Their design made them
incredibly capable.

Starting first as small
fishing vessels,

the caravels were soon adapted
by Europeans to explore

the coast of Africa,

while Columbus took
two of them...

The Niña and the Pinta...

On his first voyage
to the Americas.

CASTRO:
Caravels became famous

for being swift and fast,
and there's an English text

that says, "They, they swirl
around our warships

like butterflies."

NARRATOR:
Could the Gribshunden
be one of these advanced

new caravels?

If so, it's unlike any other
known example.

To begin with,
the wreck of the Gribshunden

is nearly 115 feet long.

The largest known caravels...

Which might have included
the Niña and Pinta...

Topped out at around 75.

ADAMS:
Caravels were very good
at what they did.

But they're quite small ships.

NARRATOR:
Nor is it likely
the Gribshunden is simply

a longer version of a caravel.

Building a ship is a trade-off
between size, speed,

and capacity.

Caravels were optimized
for speed,

combining a sleek hull
usually with triangular sails

called lateen sails.

ADAMS:
A lateen sail

gives you slightly more
flexibility in the sense that

it will act more efficiently,
like an aerofoil,

and allow the ship to sail
across the wind

or even a little into wind.

NARRATOR:
Lateen sails are agile,
but they have a drawback.

CASTRO:
There is a big problem

with lateen sails, is, when they
get big, you need big crews.

NARRATOR:
Increasing a caravel's size
thus required much larger crews.

Yet the caravels...
With their quick, narrow hulls...

Didn't have room for the extra
supplies required.

CASTRO:
The limit with caravels is size.

If you do not have space to put

food and water,
you cannot go far away.

So you need large vessels.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
Based on everything the team
is seeing,

this wreck is clearly
not a caravel.

It's a new design,
something longer, wider,

and, as the team is now finding,

carrying a huge amount
of supplies.

Barrels, barrels, barrels.

Barrel staves, barrel heads,
barrel hooping.

NARRATOR:
Even after 500 years underwater,

the wood looks
perfectly preserved.

A symbol has been carved
into each lid,

though its meaning is unclear.

To learn more,

the team takes the barrel staves
back to shore,

to scientist Hans Linderson.

[machine beeping]

Linderson
is a dendrochronologist:

an expert in tree rings.

LINDERSON:
We can be very accurate,

but it's very hard to do on,
on this waterlogged oak.

NARRATOR:
In addition to the barrels,
Linderson's lab

also analyzes the origin of the
timbers used in the ship itself.

He begins by shaving

the waterlogged outer wood away,

revealing the preserved
tree rings below.

LINDERSON:
We cut it like this

and make the surface
perfectly clear.

NARRATOR:
Chalk helps the rings stand out
more starkly.

LINDERSON:
So we try to make it white
by chalk.

NARRATOR:
Then, using a microscope, he
measures the width of the rings.

LINDERSON:
The tree ring started here,

maybe in the end of May,

and grew like this
until the end of July

or maybe the beginning
of August.

NARRATOR:
Each year, a tree adds another
ring of new wood as it grows.

But some years are better
than others.

A drought year might produce
a thinner ring.

A long, wet summer might produce
a thicker one.

Thus, the tree rings becomes
a sort of fingerprint,

a unique reflection of the
weather in the specific time

and place where this tree
was growing.

LINDERSON:
I measure every ring.

I try to get as many rings
as possible.

And then threw it out
in our database.

NARRATOR:
Linderson's records include
an estimated



allowing him to zero in on
exactly when this wood was cut,

a precise ten-month window
starting in late 1482.

LINDERSON:


that is the youngest tree ring
we have...



Maybe after, like, August,
they have cut the wood.

NARRATOR:
But Linderson's database
also reveals something odd.

The wood doesn't seem to come
from a Nordic country.

LINDERSON:
Well, in this case,

we saw the sample
didn't fit to Sweden.

NARRATOR:
Instead, it seems to have
originated

from hundreds of miles away.

LINDERSON:
It was close
to Northwest France.

NARRATOR:
It's possible this Danish
warship didn't come from

a Scandinavian country at all.

Its timbers are French.

Even more interesting,
Linderson's analysis

indicates the barrels
holding the ship's cargo

come from yet another part
of Europe.

LINDERSON:
We also determined

the place
where they have been growing.

They come from Scania,
Southern Sweden,

and also from Poland.

Okay.

FOLEY:
That's interesting.

My colleagues tell me that
Poland had a huge export market

in making barrels
and shipping these out

all over Europe.

NARRATOR:
But dendrochronology cannot
reveal exactly what

these barrels carried.

♪♪

Fortunately, more clues
are emerging from the wreck.

RÖNNBY:
I think we are in the, in the

kitchen store or something
like that,

because there are so many
barrels down there.
Yeah.

NARRATOR:
In one of those barrels, bones.

FOLEY:
And I just couldn't see
if that was

wood, or bone, or what that was.

FOLEY:
What, what is that?

NARRATOR:
Mysterious skeletal fragments.

But they don't appear
to be beef bones

or other common food animals.

♪♪

STELLA MACHERIDIS:
Okay, so, Brendan,
the bones that we recovered

are called scutes.

Based on a few of the scute
fragments that you excavated,

they are the remains
of something

that's at least one meter,

and probably around
two meters long.

So it's quite impressive.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
They are bones from
an Atlantic sturgeon,

a massive fish all but extinct
in these waters.

It's kind of like bony plates

that works as a shield
construction on the fish.

I think that

this fish would have been used
to be presented as a gift

to the royalties.

Because the sturgeon
was considered

one of the king's fishes.

NARRATOR:
A fish considered so valuable

that if caught, it must legally
be given to royalty.

And you would be punishable
by law.

And, you know, you don't want
to be punished by law

during the medieval, right?

[laughing]

There's a lot of evidence
for this actually being

one of the things that they
would have had with them

as a manifestation of power

or their, just, royal status.

NARRATOR:
As they dig deeper
into the cargo hold of a king,

it's like a window into
long-forgotten lives.

FOLEY:
We were excavating

down in the hold
amidst all those barrels,

and I thought at first
it was a g*n.

But it's not a g*n.

It's some sort of vessel.

What we have here is a

completely intact wooden tankard
from 1495,

handle, cover, completely
intact,

and possibly the king's mark
on it.

♪♪

The experience of excavating
on a site like this

is really quite visceral.

Every once in a while, though,
we'll find an object

that just makes us realize

that we're looking back
half a millennium in history.

And you think some nobleman
was the last one to hold

these objects 500 years ago.

And it's this sense of,
of almost time travel.

RÖNNBY:
That's the real benefit
of archaeology.

You're traveling back in history
in quite a unique way.

And I will say
that written sources

can never get you that close
to history as,

as archaeology sometimes can.

NARRATOR:
And then, something puzzling.

MAN:
Keep your hand
on the bottom of it.

MAN:
There's good stuff in there.

MAN:
Excellent!

MAN:
It's like a leather pouch.

NARRATOR:
They have found what appear
to be corroded lumps of metal

wrapped in leather.

It's difficult to tell
what they once were.

But there may be a way
to find out.

♪♪

FOLEY:
In the wreck, up close to the,
to the top

of the surface of the sediment,

we found what we think is
a leather purse

that was full of

this material.

So, if the machine can show us

what's in there...

DIRK:
I think we can do that.
Excellent.

NARRATOR:
The solution is a CT scanner,

similar to that used by doctors
to peer inside the human body.

DIRK:
So this just goes
from the bottom up.

FOLEY:
Okay, that's cool already.

You can already see that
there's, there's coins there.
WOMAN: Mm-hmm.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
It's a stack of coins.

♪♪

FOLEY:
So, it's a lot.

It's a lot of coins.
WOMAN:
Mm-hmm.

DIRK:
Yes.

The question is,
what are they worth?

[both laughing]

NARRATOR:
It's a small fortune,
perhaps belonging to a nobleman.

♪♪

It seems strange.

Based on the military artifacts,

it appears Gribshunden
was outfitted for battle.

Yet she was also hauling
what appears to be

large amounts of food

and wealth.

What were King Hans and his men
doing here?

To understand the odd mix
of wealth and warfare,

the archaeologists need to
understand more about this ship.

And now they're close.

BATCHVAROV:
Oh, what wouldn't I give
to be able to get there?

I mean, this is so promising,
because if we have

these things here,

and we have,
we will have the rest here,

I'm quite sure about that.

BATCHVAROV:
Why would it disappear?

♪♪

NARRATOR:
Down on the seafloor,
Johan Rönnby

is the first to see it.

♪♪

It's beautiful.

Yeah.

NARRATOR:
They have found a remarkable
piece of the ship

that reveals the secret
of its construction,

and perhaps the construction
of other European great ships.

ADAMS:
We've got this piece of the hull

that's collapsed outwards,

but it's done so in one lump,
one coherent unit.

In a way, it's better than if it
had stayed above the seabed,

because it would all be eroded
and, and grotty.

But now it's gone flat
and it's covered up by about

a meter of sediment...
It's in pristine condition.

NARRATOR:
This key piece of the hull
was preserved intact

simply because it had
been buried.

It's a tremendous
stroke of luck.

At some point, either when
the ship sank or afterwards,

this entire section of hull
collapsed outward.

But what we're seeing is,
this piece that's hinged down

is still going under the
sediment.

That's just fabulous.

RÖNNBY:
No, we are quite happy now,
because

the whole ship
is actually there.

And that's, our excavation now
really proves that.

NARRATOR:
They have finally found
the evidence

that shows how this ship
was built, from the hull...

The skin of the ship... to the
meticulously crafted timbers

that make up the interior
skeleton.

And in these timbers,
the archaeological team

sees the evidence of a new kind
of ship,

its hull built not in
the overlapping clinker style,

but not purely in the style used
by Mediterranean ships

like caravels, either.

ADAMS:
So you've got fastenings,
you've got bolts, tree nails,

the wooden pegs that hold
everything together,

and we've even got some, I mean,
we've got some things

we don't understand, frankly.

NARRATOR:
But deciphering
this incredible discovery

is slow work underwater.

♪♪

So instead, back on shore,

the team's digital specialist,
Paola Derudas,

processes the photogrammetry
images into a digital model.

ERIKSSON:
Yeah, that's, that's
quite amazing.

NARRATOR:
It's a high-fidelity copy
of the wreck site,

offering an up-close look at
their long-hoped-for discovery.

FOLEY:
Now we get to see

the shipwreck in its entirety
for the first time.

When you're down there,
you can only see

small part of the ship.

To have an overview like this
is quite amazing.

NARRATOR:
It's the earliest surviving
example of the first generation

of ships built in
an incredible new style.

As they had suspected,
the construction is different

from the clinker-built hulls
of the Vikings

and other northern ships.

ERIKSSON:
Part of the hull,
you can actually see that

it's not the way
that ships were built

in the earlier medieval period.

ERIKSSON:
It doesn't look like this.

NARRATOR:
Nor could it be classified
as a caravel, so well-known

in the Mediterranean.

FOLEY:
This one right here, Paola,
if you can get...

DERUDAS:
This one?
FOLEY: Yeah.

The cuts in it right there.
Huh.

[laughing]:
This is fantastic
to see one!

ERIKSSON:
For the first time, we can see
how they were built

and how much space you had
inside them.

NARRATOR:
Instead, it appears to be both,

incorporating elements
from each region

into a single, unified design.

A new generation of ship.

FOLEY:
So this is Mediterranean style,
this is clinker.

The dimensions

are clearly different...
the width and the depth.
Yeah.

NARRATOR:
They can see in the timbers
that the blueprint starts

with a caravel-like hull
borrowed from the Mediterranean.

But it's wider and heavier
than the sleek caravels,

giving it additional
capabilities.

ADAMS:
Because its framing system
is so much more robust,

you could build your ship
bigger and tougher,

and therefore it's much more
predisposed to carrying

lots of cargo, people,
and weapons.

NARRATOR:
Above it, lighter boards

are used for the fore and aft
castles,

similar to the northern,
clinker-style hulls.

The rigging appears to be
also northern,

featuring large square sails
on two of the masts.

But it adds triangular
lateen sails,

used by Mediterranean ships
like the caravel,

added for versatility.

ADAMS:
They arrive at this sort of
technological fusion of features

that makes a more versatile

and seaworthy
and controllable ship.

Its sea-keeping qualities
are good and it needs less crew.

It would've been as high-tech
as there would've been around

at the time.

NARRATOR:
It was a new kind of design

that would soon change
the world.

FOLEY:
You can think about
the late 15th century

as a sort of space race,
in the exact same way

that the Americans and the
Soviets and other nations

were competing on
a national scale to achieve

a technological feat.

That's exactly what was going on
in the late 15th century.

All the European powers now
began to develop this ship type.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
With Gribshunden, King Hans was
one of the first to deploy

one of these technologically
advanced new ships.

Heavily armed,
he used it to intimidate.

Hans was the powerful ruler
of three nations...

Denmark, Norway,
but also Sweden.

It was known as the
Kalmar Union,

but the union was troubled.

RÖNNBY:
It was quite the problematic
relationship,

because there was a lot of

noblemen and, and powerful
people,

so it was a power struggle
all the time.

And that's really why Hans
is, is here.

NARRATOR:
Records show that Hans
was on his way to scare

a rebellious Swedish nobleman
back into line.

This was a vessel that was
floating propaganda.

It was really a floating castle.

ADAMS:
When Hans turns up with his
whole fleet, and Gribshunden

is there as one of the principal
warships of his fleet,

he's making a statement.

This was raw power on display.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
And then, misfortune strikes.

As a storm rages out at sea,
Hans anchors Gribshunden

in the sheltered waters

of Stora Ekön.

Yet danger still lurks.

FOLEY:
The written sources suggest

that the king's sort of sorcerer
says that the omens are bad

and the king should get off
the ship, and he does.

And then the ship catches fire.

ADAMS:
Which is partly borne out by
what we're seeing on the seabed.

And we do see some of the
timbers that are blackened,

which are consistent with that.

♪♪

FOLEY:
And the fire reaches

the powder magazine, and there's
some sort of expl*si*n on board.

[loud expl*si*n]

NARRATOR:
It's possible that in this way,
Gribshunden was a victim

of her own nature as a
cutting-edge weapon of w*r.

FOLEY:
Fire today is still probably the
first or second k*ller of ships.

Did they not yet develop
the protocols to handle fire

in a ship carrying gunpowder?

Is that why Gribshunden
was lost?

It very well could be.

They hadn't yet developed the
methods to keep the ship safe.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
It had to have been an
incredible loss for King Hans.

Yet now the ship has become
an invaluable gain

for nautical history.

No other vessel from this first
generation of massive ships

still survives.

ADAMS:
Gribshunden, I think,
takes us back

as far as we've got so far
to this period of change.

Europe is changing, and ships
are the tools of that change.

CASTRO:
You start having more contact.

And there is economic growth.

Cities grow, literacy grows.

ADAMS:
Because of population growth

and economic momentum,
ships of both areas

start to trade
in each other's waters.

And so you get this sort of
technological diffusion.

FOLEY:
We begin to get a picture

of the late medieval world
and all of its interconnections.

NARRATOR:
And once these different regions

start learning from each other,

everything begins to change.

♪♪

Whereas King Hans sees
the potential of these ships

as an intimidating weapon,

others see a vessel capable of
pushing farther

than ever before.

ADAMS:
What you're building is not only
a ship that is tougher

and bigger, you're building it
in a design which not only has

capacity for cargo,

but it's got accommodation
built into that architecture.

This is when we start to see
ships

going across the Atlantic
for not just days,

but weeks or months at a time,
or even a year or more.

These are the ships of the age
of global exploration.

NARRATOR:
The shipbuilding advances
of this period

would be used by Columbus,

Magellan,
and those that followed

to expand Europe's influence,

laying the groundwork
for empires

that would transform the world,

even as they enslaved peoples
around the globe.

History might have played out
very differently

without this novel ship design,

its secrets hidden in the wreck
that was lost

for 500 years.

But now this missing chapter
of history is restored to us.

♪♪