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"Hanseatic ship" citizen science project

Calender Icon 2. December 2024

In November, the Archive and the Archaeology and Monument Preservation Department of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck and the Research Center for the History of the Hanseatic League and the Baltic Sea Region (FGHO) launched a special collaboration. Together with the FGHO's Citizen Science project, Lübeck's “Hanseatic Ship”, built in the early 1640s, is now to be examined using historical written sources from Lübeck.

Citizen Science Projekt_Hanse.Quellen.Lesen_an der FGHO ©Olaf Malzahn_FGHO
Olaf Malzahn | FGHO

Over the course of the year, numerous new findings were made about the ship's discovery. “We now know that the ship was built in the early 1640s and sank in the Trave shortly after 1655/56,” says Dr. Felix Rösch, underwater archaeologist for the Hanseatic City of Lübeck. “This was probably caused by a large fire, traces of which we found in the entire hold. This means that, in addition to the location of the sinking, we now also have a well-defined time period and an event that caused the damage, after which we can specifically search the sources. I am confident that we will soon know even more about the first ship found in Lübeck.”

Following the spectacular salvage of the wreck from the Trave last year, research is entering a new phase: in addition to the archaeological investigation, the focus is now on searching for clues in the written sources. One “hot lead” leads to previously little-known files from the Lübeck maritime court, which the Hanseatic city's archive has digitized especially for the project. These sources are now being made available online to the citizen scientists involved in the FGHO Citizen Science project “Hanse.Quellen.Lesen!”: They are joining forces to transcribe the historical manuscripts and make their observations available to the archaeology researchers. The aim is to gain new clues from the extensive Lübeck holdings as to what exactly happened to the sunken ship: What was its name? Who did it belong to? And what led to its sinking at the end of the 1650s?

Background to the FGHO's Citizen Science project:
The “Hanse.Quellen.Lesen!” project offers interested parties the opportunity to participate in the source work as citizen scientists. Those interested in the Hanseatic League can take an in-depth look at the background of the indexed texts and research the former economic area of the Hanseatic League. In order to discuss the transcriptions together, the FGHO historians organize practice sessions via Zoom every two weeks.

Read more about the project here (in German).

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