Archaeologists race against time to study crumbling 1,300-year-old shipwreck
A 1,300-year-old shipwreck so fragile that air could destroy it has been unearthed in southern France and archeologists face a race against time to reveal its
A 1,300-year-old shipwreck so fragile that air could destroy it has been unearthed in southern France and archeologists face a race against time to reveal its medieval secrets.
The partial remains of the “extremely rare” 40-foot-long boat, which radiocarbon dates from between A.D. 680 and A.D. 720, was unveiled at Villenave-d’Ornon near Bordeaux on Wednesday.
The French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research said the boat was an “exceptional testimony to the naval architecture of the high Middle Ages” and could have navigated rivers, as well as the Atlantic coast of France.
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“In order to limit the degradation of the wood of the wreck, especially at the moment with the heatwave in the southwest of France, we are watering the wreck every 30 minutes,” Laurent Grimbert, who is leading the excavation for the institute, told NBC News via email Thursday.
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