Marine archaeologists recently identified the remnants of two Danish slave ships, Fridericus Quartus and Christianus Quintus, that sank off Central America in 1710. While local lore previously identified the wrecks as pirate ships, new findings from the National Museum of Denmark and the Viking Ship Museum revealed that yellow bricks and clay pipes found at the site are linked to the ships. The successful underwater excavation confirmed, through detailed analysis of artifacts, that these shipwrecks correlate with historical records, fulfilling a three-century mystery of their fate.
The analyses are very convincing and we no longer have any doubts that these are the wrecks of the two Danish slave ships, said co-researcher David Gregory of the National Museum of Denmark.
The bricks are Danish and the same goes for the timbers, which are additionally charred and sooty from a fire. This fits perfectly with the historical accounts stating that one of the ships burnt.
Measurements of the bricks revealed that they were the same size as the 'Flensburg' yellow bricks that were used in Denmark and the Danish colonies during the 1700s.
Analysis of their clay confirmed that it came from Denmark - specifically either from a beach called Iller Strand or a small town called Egernsund.
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