Lower Saxony (Germany)
Brief Encounters – Wreck Investigations in the Inter-Tidal Zone of Lower Saxony’s Wadden Sea 2006 – 2019 [CANCELLED]
Michael Wesemann (Lower Saxony State Office for Cultural Management) & Dr. Mike Belasus (Lower Saxony Institute for Historical Coastal Research)
Looking into the archaeological database of Lower Saxony, we find records of 35 shipwrecks or loose wreck parts within the East Frisian coastal sea and the outer estuaries of the rivers Ems and Jade, some of them known since long, but most of them reported during the last 15 years. Of these, 18 finds are of some interest for us. They have been investigated under very heterogeneous, sometimes even adventurous conditions, mainly by two different institutions, the NIhK (Lower Saxony Institute for Historical Coastal Research) and the NLD (Lower Saxony State Office for Cultural Management). We will give you a short review of the wreck investigations ranging geographically from the isles of Borkum in the west to Mellum in the east, chronologically seen from the 18th to the 20th century, from just some pieces to well preserved hulks still containing remnants of their last cargoes. Two of them will be described a bit more in detail, helping us to gain some insight into the economic and social living conditions of the then skippers.
