Swedish ships mapped at bottom of sea

Radio Sweden
Posted: Wednesday, July 30, 2014 at 13:45
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The Bronze Horseman a monument to Peter the Great the founder of St Petersburg, Russia. (iStock)

Archaeologists have uncovered missing 300-year-old Swedish battleships that were intentionally scuttled outside the coastal town of Strömstad.

The boats were sunk during the Great Northern War when Russia’s Peter the Great triumphed over Sweden.

In order to prevent Denmark, allied with Russia, from entering the port city of Strömstad on the coast near Norway, Sweden opened fire on its own fleet, scuttling about 20 ships and barges in order to keep them out of Danish hands.

Now professor Thomas Bergstrand, an historian and archaeologist at the Museum of Bohuslän in Uddevlla, has found those ships and have begun mapping them at the bottom of the seabed.

As early as the 1880s divers found the wreck and even managed to haul up materials that were ultimately sold as scrap. But only now have scientist begun using sonar to successfully map the greater wreck area.