Copper bars from Wittenbergen

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Six cooked or shredded copper disks in the Hamburg Archaeological Museum
Rectangular forged copper bars in the Museum of Hamburg History
Round forged copper bars in the Museum of Hamburg History
Six brick-shaped copper bars with stamps from Neusohl and the Paller Bank in the Hamburg Archaeological Museum

The copper ingots Wittenbergen are parts of the charge of the 17th century Hamburg - Wittenbergen wrecked sailing ship , from a 1981 dredger from the fairway of the Elbe were dug. Some of the salvaged bars are in the permanent exhibition of the Museum of Hamburg History , a second part is shown in the permanent exhibition of the Hamburg Archaeological Museum in Hamburg-Harburg .

Find history

In 1981 the crew of the Elbe dredger Odin came across parts of a sunken shipwreck with its cargo while dredging the Elbe fairway off Wittenbergen in Hamburg-Rissen (location: 53 ° 33 ′ 37.2 ″  N , 9 ° 45 ′ 2.2 ″  O coordinates: 53 ° 33 '37.2 "  N , 9 ° 45' 2.2"  E ). The crew recovered a total of 8  tons of copper . A scrap dealer bought about 3.5 t, the Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte bought another ton, and more bars went to the German Mining Museum in Bochum and various private collectors . The whereabouts of the remaining bars has not yet been determined. In addition to the copper bars, other parts of the cargo were recovered, such as muskets , knives , brass bowls and tin bars .

Findings

The recovered planks of the wreck indicate a seaworthy, about 30 m long Kraweel with bold frames in Carvel out with a tonnage of up to 100 loads . The oaks used for the construction probably came from Lower Saxony and the evaluation of the dendrochronological data showed a felling date around 1571. Between 1595 and 1600, repairs were carried out on the ship's hull. The cargo of the sailing ship consisted of copper bars, brass bowls, knives, muskets and probably cloth , which were the property of the merchants traveling on board or the ship's crew.

Copper bars

Most of the cargo probably consisted of the copper bars weighing more than 8 t. The bars that have been recovered and examined so far come from different processing stages with different fineness .

  • The largest part, weighing 2200 kg, was made up of around 300 oval cooking or tearing copper disks, which were manufactured using the Saiger process, in which the silver was removed from the copper melt by adding lead . These have weights of 5 to 8 kg, with a diameter of 30 to 75 cm, and an average thickness of 1 cm with raised edges up to 3 cm high. Some of the bars are stamped LP and / or cross. The origin of the raw copper of these bars has not yet been clearly clarified; Thuringian , Saxon or Bohemian deposits and copper works come into question .
  • The second type of ingot consists of rectangular forged copper plates with lengths of 60 to 80 cm, widths of 36 to 68 cm with an average thickness of 1 cm and weights between 20 and 23 kg. Of this 700 kg have been proven. The bars bear the stamped coat of arms of the Chamber of Neusohl, next to them the stamp of the Augsburg banking house Paller, which has held the monopoly on Neusohl copper since 1569. These bars most likely come from Neusohl, today's Banská Bystrica in Slovakia .
  • The third type of ingot consists of round forged copper plates weighing a total of 200 kg. They have a diameter of about 48 to 50 cm and a thickness of 0.3 to 0.6 cm. These bars also bear the stamps of Neusohl and the Paller bank.
  • The fourth type of ingot is 1100 kg forged brick- shaped ingots. They have lengths from 28 to 35 cm, widths from 10 to 12.5 cm and thicknesses from 3.5 to 4.5 cm with individual weights of 10 to 12 kg. The bars bear various manufacturers and trademarks . Each bar bears a hut mark and two additional stamps. A total of two different hut marks and nine stamps of possible trade marks are available. The origin of these copper bars has also not yet been clearly established.

  • Hut sign

  • Hut sign and two trade marks (above and below)

  • Trademark (left) and two stamps from the Neusohl Chamber (right)

  • Trademark

  • Trademark

More shipload

Brass bowls

The ship's further cargo consisted of muskets, knives, bowls and cloths, the exact quantities of which can no longer be determined. A total of 22 muskets with matchlock , rear sight and front sight were recovered . In addition, 160 utility knife, which at 11 blades nor the wooden handles were received were. The knives were like the muskets in waterproof tons packed. Furthermore, 11 bowls made of brass sheet were recovered, which were made so that they could be stacked one inside the other. The knife blades were made from various manufacturers' marks. Knives and brass bowls probably came from southern Germany and may have been made in Nuremberg workshops. Numerous finds had been damaged by the excavator shovels. Only the lead cloth seals of the textiles in the cargo have been preserved. The seals bear inscriptions such as LEIDS GOED for Leidener Tuch or HEERENSAAIEN , also a cloth made in Leiden from Scottish , Dutch or North German wool , which probably made up the largest part of the textile load. A seal bears the inscription AMST ERDAM EINKE STAES 1584 , it possibly secured a batch of sugar .

Marine equipment

In addition to the ship's cargo, other ship's equipment was found, including an extensive set of tools used by the ship's carpenter , a pistol, bullet tongs, card set , boat hooks , lance tips , loaded ship guns , iron pegs , a saber fragment, and calculating coins .

  • Three arithmetic pennies

  • Pewter dishes and seal

  • Rod ring cannon

interpretation

Reconstruction of the interior of the ship in the Museum of Hamburg History

The cargo parts of the ship found in the Elbe expand our knowledge of the long-distance trade relations of Hamburg in the early 17th century and the already well-developed networking and globalization of international trade. A comparison with preserved historical loading lists suggests that the ship was in overseas trade with Portugal . The seals and stamps on the goods add to the knowledge of the routes of origin of the exported goods , which in this case extended from Bohemia to southern Germany, the Netherlands and possibly beyond Scandinavia. It is believed that the copper bars were to be processed into goods in Portugal, which in turn were exported to Africa and India , where high profits could be made with them in exchange for spices such as pepper , pearls and precious stones .

A contemporary copper engraving in the holdings of the Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte reports on a customs- cleared crawler leaving Hamburg, which exploded , burned out and sank on July 2, 1622 in front of Neumühlen when the usual gun salute was fired due to carelessness . The sinking took the lives, including the 37 people skipper and -eigner Peter Jansen Weyer. According to the shipping documents, the ship is said to have loaded 70 loads of cornstarch , copper plates and 300 bales of colored brocade fabric for Cádiz and the province of Malaga . After the accident, however, it turned out that a large number of undeclared weapons and black powder were loaded. These lucrative smuggled goods were obviously intended for the Spanish struggle for freedom against the Netherlands, when Hamburg contractually agreed with the Netherlands to prevent this smuggling . The spatial and temporal proximity of this event to the shipwreck found in Wittenbergen led to the assumption that the wreck found could be the ship that was damaged on July 2, 1622. This theory is justified and supported by the fact that the cannons of the found wreck were found loaded but not fired, which would speak for a smuggled ship that had to expect boarding at any time . This interpretation is also supported by the results of the dendrochronological dating of the shipbuilding timbers, which showed consistent felling dates of the timbers between 1571 and 1600. The spatial distance between the Neumühlen disaster and the site of discovery near Wittenbergen can be attributed to the fact that the exploded, burning ship was still drifting about 16 nautical miles downstream before it sank to the bottom near Wittenbergen. Based on these data, Jörgen Bracker assumes that it is the same ship.

literature

  • Rüdiger Articus, Jochen Brandt, Elke Först, Yvonne Krause, Michael Merkel, Kathrin Mertens, Rainer-Maria Weiss: Archaeological Museum Hamburg, Helms Museum: A tour through the ages . In: Rainer-Maria Weiss (ed.): Publications of the Archaeological Museum Hamburg Helms-Museum . No. 101 . Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-931429-20-1 , pp. 166 .
  • Ekkehard Westermann: Witnesses to the Hamburg copper trade at the turn of the 16th to the 17th century . In: Jörgen Bracker (Hrsg.): God's friend - all the world's enemy: from piracy and convoy travel; Störtebeker and the consequences . Museum for Hamburg History, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-9805772-5-2 , p. 116-126 .
  • Jörgen Bracker: A wreck from the Elbe near Wittenbergen . In: H. Stobb (Ed.): Sea and river ports from the high Middle Ages to industrialization . A / 24. Institute for Urban History, Cologne / Vienna 1986, p. 229-260 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Subject area mobility, showcases no.120 and 121.
  2. ^ Rüdiger Articus, Jochen Brandt, Elke Först, Yvonne Krause, Michael Merkel, Kathrin Mertens, Rainer-Maria Weiss: Archäologisches Museum Hamburg, Helms-Museum: A tour through the ages (=  publications of the Archaeological Museum Hamburg Helms-Museum . No. 101 ). Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-931429-20-1 , pp. 166 .
  3. ↑ Jörgen Bracker: Peter Jansen, the arms smuggler from the Elbe . In: Jörgen Bracker (Hrsg.): God's friend - all the world's enemy: from piracy and convoy travel; Störtebeker and the consequences . Museum for Hamburg History, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-9805772-5-2 , p. 110 . , determined from http://www.panoramio.com/photo/38338704
  4. ^ A b Ekkehard Westermann: Witnesses to the Hamburg copper trade at the turn of the 16th to the 17th century . In: Jörgen Bracker (Hrsg.): God's friend - all the world's enemy: from piracy and convoy travel; Störtebeker and the consequences . Museum for Hamburg History, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-9805772-5-2 , p. 116-126 .
  5. ↑ a b c d Piracy and Elbe security ( memento from June 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) on hamburgmuseum (accessed on August 7, 2012)
  6. ↑ a b c d Jörgen Bracker : Peter Jansen, the arms smuggler from the Elbe . In: Jörgen Bracker (Hrsg.): God's friend - all the world's enemy: from piracy and convoy travel; Störtebeker and the consequences . Museum for Hamburg History, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-9805772-5-2 , p. 98-115 .