LUND, SWEDEN—Phys.org reports that Mikael Larsson and Brendan Foley of Lund University have analyzed the remains of more than 3,000 plants recovered from the Gribshunden, a Danish royal ship that sank in the cold waters of the Baltic Sea off the coast of Sweden in 1495. Danish King Hans had been meeting Sten Sture the Elder, who ruled Sweden, when the Gribshunden caught fire and sank. Artifacts were recovered from the wreckage in the 1960s, but this is the first time that the plant material has been studied. Traces of nutmeg, cloves, mustard, dill, saffron, ginger, peppercorns, almonds, blackberries, raspberries, grapes, and flax have been identified, in addition to henbane, which is inedible but may have been used for medicinal purposes. Larsson and Foley suggest that King Hans benefited from an advanced trade network, since some of the spices may have been imported from Indonesia. He may have loaded up his ship with rare goods as a show of power, they concluded. Read the original scholarly article about this research in PLOS ONE. To read about a figurehead recovered from the Gribshunden wreck, go to "A Baltic Sea Monster Surfaces."
