A 300-year-old wreck, amid onions, tulips and potatoes. A familiar sight in Flevoland. In the soil here, the former bottom of the Zuiderzee, hundreds of wrecks have sunk. More than 450 have now been found. That makes Flevoland the largest ship graveyard in the world.
When the Zuiderzee still ruled here, ships sailed in and out to trade. So did the very likely Brit…
A 300-year-old wreck, amid onions, tulips and potatoes. A familiar sight in Flevoland. In the soil here, the former bottom of the Zuiderzee, hundreds of wrecks have sunk. More than 450 have now been found. That makes Flevoland the largest ship graveyard in the world.
When the Zuiderzee still ruled here, ships sailed in and out to trade. So did the very likely British merchant ship that was named Queen Anne after the excavation. Indeed, two rare Royal Portrait Spoons from London were found in the shipwreck. The top of the stems clearly shows the left-facing portrait bust of Queen Anne. Anne was the sister of Mary Stuart, wife of the Dutch stadholder and later English king William III (1650-1702). Queen Anne succeeded William III after his death in 1702 and was queen of England and Scotland until 1707 and then queen of Britain until her death on 1 August 1714.
Although many other utensils have been found (jars of olives, still-filled wine bottles, grapes and peaches), almost nothing remains of the ship itself. This is partly due to the extremely hot weather during the excavation, which caused the wood to dry out completely and pulverise. And money for conservation was sadly not there. Fortunately, the ship's trusses on the edge of the Schoterveld nature reserve were given a new purpose in the form of a monument. The ship's 1.5-metre-high trusses have been buried about 50 cm and today indicate the contours of this exceptionally large ship for the Zuiderzee in the landscape.
