56°8′41.2″N 15°13′15.3″E / 56.144778°N 15.220917°E / 56.144778; 15.220917
29-713: Griffen may refer to: Gribshunden or Griffen , a 15th-century Danish warship Griffen, Austria , a town in the district of Völkermarkt in Carinthia Griffen Gun , an artillery cannon invented by John Griffen and used by the North during the American Civil War Griffen Island , West Virginia, U.S. See also [ edit ] Griffin (disambiguation) Griffon (disambiguation) All pages with titles containing Griffen Topics referred to by
58-399: A body of water is protected and deep enough to allow anchorage. Many such harbors are rias . Natural harbors have long been of great strategic naval and economic importance, and many great cities of the world are located on them. Having a protected harbor reduces or eliminates the need for breakwaters as it will result in calmer waves inside the harbor. Some examples are: For harbors near
87-420: A maximum beam of approximately 8 m (26 ft). Gribshunden perhaps was designed similarly to the vessels used on voyages of exploration in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, and therefore archaeological investigation of this site may provide insights into the ships commanded by Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, and others. Building on earlier investigations on the site, from 2019 new studies of
116-658: A summit with the Swedish Council. Accompanying Hans was a fleet carrying the Danish and Norwegian Councils, consisting of the high nobility and senior clergymen, and their retinues. This diplomatic effort was necessary because the Swedish leader, Sten Sture the Elder , resisted Hans' efforts to bring Sweden back into the Kalmar Union . As the premier ship of the Danish fleet, Gribshunden and
145-571: A tankard milled from alder wood and emblazoned with a crown-like symbol, fine leather shoes, and exotic spices and foodstuffs including clove, ginger, saffron, pepper, and almonds. A 2021 episode of the American science show NOVA profiles the 2019 underwater archeological investigation of Gribshunden . Natural harbor A harbor ( American English ), or harbour ( Australian English , British English , Canadian English , Irish English , New Zealand English ; see spelling differences ),
174-643: Is Long Beach Harbor , California , United States, which was an array of salt marshes and tidal flats too shallow for modern merchant ships before it was first dredged in the early 20th century. In contrast, a natural harbor is surrounded on several sides by land. Examples of natural harbors include Sydney Harbour , New South Wales, Australia, Halifax Harbour in Halifax, Nova Scotia , Canada and Trincomalee Harbour in Sri Lanka. Artificial harbors are frequently built for use as ports. The oldest artificial harbor known
203-704: Is a sheltered body of water where ships , boats , and barges can be moored . The term harbor is often used interchangeably with port , which is a man-made facility built for loading and unloading vessels and dropping off and picking up passengers. Harbors usually include one or more ports. Alexandria Port in Egypt, meanwhile, is an example of a port with two harbors. Harbors may be natural or artificial. An artificial harbor can have deliberately constructed breakwaters , sea walls , or jetties or they can be constructed by dredging , which requires maintenance by further periodic dredging. An example of an artificial harbor
232-470: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Gribshunden Gribshunden or Griffen ( English : " Griffin - Hound " or "Griffin"), also known by several variant names including Gribshund , Gripshunden , Gripshund , Griff , and Griffone , was a Danish warship , the flagship of Hans ( John), King of Denmark (r. 1481–1513). Gribshunden sank in 1495 after an explosion while in
261-561: Is the Ancient Egyptian site at Wadi al-Jarf , on the Red Sea coast, which is at least 4500 years old (ca. 2600–2550 BCE, reign of King Khufu ). The largest artificially created harbor is Jebel Ali in Dubai . Other large and busy artificial harbors include: The Ancient Carthaginians constructed fortified, artificial harbors called cothons . A natural harbor is a landform where a section of
290-503: The Baltic Sea off the coast of Ronneby in southeastern Sweden ; the ship is one of the best-preserved wrecks yet discovered from the late medieval period . The first mention of this ship by name comes from a letter dated 16 May 1486, in which Hans, King of Denmark and Norway , noted his location as "in navi nostra Griffone ", Latin for "in our ship Griffon ". Gribshunden and its variant names were then subsequently recorded in
319-460: The North and South poles , being ice-free is an important advantage, especially when it is year-round. Examples of these are: The world's southernmost harbor, located at Antarctica 's Winter Quarters Bay (77° 50′ South), is sometimes ice-free, depending on the summertime pack ice conditions. Although the world's busiest port is a contested title, in 2017 the world's busiest harbor by cargo tonnage
SECTION 10
#1732852146859348-454: The carvel-built hull is a lightly constructed superstructure of lapstrake planks on frames. Gribshunden is the oldest carvel hull found in Nordic waters, and marks the transition to the adoption of much larger ships after the late medieval period. Surveys of the wreck indicate the ship had a keel length of 25.5 m (93.5 ft) and an estimated overall length of 32 m (105 ft), with
377-405: The Danish fleet's ship lists from 1487 to 1495. The ship was used frequently by Hans during its ten-year lifespan. Archival documents show the king sailed on the ship to Norway in 1486 and 1490, and to Gotland in 1487. He sent the vessel to England with a delegation to negotiate with Henry VII. In summer 1495, on the ship's final voyage, Hans set sail from Copenhagen for Kalmar , Sweden, for
406-478: The Danish-Norwegian delegation had departed. The Kalmar Union was re-established more than two years later, after Hans' army defeated Sten Sture's forces at the 1497 Battle of Rotebro . The wreck of Gribshunden came to rest on the sea floor with a starboard list of about 27 degrees. Despite disruption from Hans' salvors immediately after it sank and slow natural decay over five centuries, the starboard side of
435-602: The Gribshunden site. In the 1970s, the local diving club discovered the wreck at a depth of 10 m (33 ft), in the Baltic Sea north of Stora Ekön, an island in the Blekinge archipelago off the coast of Ronneby , Sweden . In 2000 the regional authority in Blekinge county learned that the wreck could be a medieval warship, and mandated archaeological investigations. From 2001 until 2012 archaeologist Lars Einarsson of
464-573: The Kalmar County Museum conducted a series of activities at the site. In 2002, Swedish naval historian Ingvar Sjöblom tentatively identified the ship as Gribshunden. Subsequent dendrochronological analysis of the ship's timbers showed that they came from oak trees felled in the Ardennes forest along the River Meuse watershed in the winter of 1482–1483, confirming a late medieval date for
493-545: The calamity. Krabbe's account, like the others, must be read critically and not accepted as objective truth. For instance, Krabbe's memory placed the shipwreck in 1494, not 1495; and archaeological investigations have revealed no evidence of fire on the ship. Hans and the fleet continued to Kalmar after the loss of the flagship, but Sten Sture delayed his arrival in Kalmar throughout the summer, finally appearing in August only after Hans and
522-428: The decades that followed, larger and more powerful guns came into use on warships such as Mary Rose , the flagship of Henry VIII. Unlike Mary Rose, Gribshunden never engaged in combat actions during its long career, but its crew did fire the artillery. In 2021 archaeologists discovered the oldest known linstock in the excavation trench, which held the burning fuse used to ignite the artillery's powder charge. Charring on
551-402: The king. The 2021 excavation revealed remains of eight crossbows , dozens of crossbow bolts, and one handgonne (early handheld firearm). These finds join the crossbow and handgonne stock recovered in 2019, and several crossbow bolts recovered in 2006 and 2019. High status artifacts include a purse of silver coins, two extraordinary identical pressure-printed works of art on birch bark,
580-411: The linstock indicates it had been in use by a gunner. Excavations conducted in 2006 and from 2019 to 2021 have delivered a wide variety of both mundane and high-status objects. These include casks coopered on a Danish volumetric standard containing common foodstuffs such as beef, fish, and beer, but also one cask containing a locally-caught 2-meter long butchered sturgeon, which was a fish reserved for
609-410: The nearly contemporaneous Swedish Sturekrönikan ( The Sture Chronicle ) and two later German sources: Reimar Koch's Lübeck Chronicle and Caspar Weinreich's Danzig Chronicle . Hans himself was ashore at the time of the loss and escaped physical injury. However, teenage expedition member Tyge Krabbe remembered twenty years after the event that some of the supposed 150 people on board died in
SECTION 20
#1732852146859638-533: The people and material it carried were symbols of military, economic, cultural, and social power. The vessel was an important aspect of Hans' strategy to convince the Swedes to re-unify with Denmark and Norway. According to historical accounts, Gribshunden suffered an explosion, burned, and sank at anchor in the natural harbor near the town of Ronneby , Sweden in June 1495 while en route to Kalmar. These accounts include
667-410: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Griffen . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Griffen&oldid=975861228 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
696-496: The ship is in good condition from the keel to the first deck, with the starboard superstructure collapsed outboard from that level and preserved in the sediments. While not as intact as Vasa , Gribshunden is the best-preserved ship yet discovered from the late medieval period . This is in part because the wreckage has been left undamaged by shipworm due to the Baltic Sea's brackish waters, measured at 7.7 practical salinity units at
725-576: The wreck and two more oak beds have been recovered. As of 2024, the wreck has revealed remains of 14 artillery pieces, including three still in situ. Two of those recently discovered guns have their iron gun tubes and breech chambers intact. Identified in 2021, the wooden bed of one of these in situ guns is 4.1 m (13.5 ft) long; this is nearly 50% longer than any of the other gun beds recovered from this wreck. Gribshunden's artillery marks an early phase of guns at sea, consisting entirely of light anti-personnel guns not intended for sinking ships. In
754-427: The wreck commenced with collection of photogrammetric data to create a three-dimensional site plan. More than 5000 high-resolution digital images were processed to generate the initial 3D model, from which accurate measurements of the site and its features can be derived. In successive field seasons, this 3D plan has been successively updated to create a time-series plan of the excavation trenches to document activities on
783-529: The wreck. Archaeological and historical research indicates Gribshunden was purpose-built as a warship, an example of the first generation of vessels designed to carry gunpowder weapons. The combination of artillery and ships specifically intended to carry these weapons was an essential enabling technology for European domination of the globe after 1492. Gribshunden represents a fusion of Northern European clinker or lapstrake shipbuilding practices with Mediterranean and southern European flush-planked traditions; atop
812-416: The wreck. 3D models of selected artifacts can be re-inserted into the photogrammetric plan of the shipwreck, ultimately delivering an interpretive tool to visualize the spatial relationships among the objects contained in the wreck. In August 2015, the shipwreck attracted international media attention when a well-preserved wooden figurehead depicting a mythical beast was recovered from the forward part of
841-641: The wreck. Suggestive of the ship's Gribshunden (" Griffin -Hound") name, the chimeric figurehead is described as a dog -like or dragon -like sea monster with lion ears, devouring a person in its crocodilian mouth. The figurehead was conserved at the Danish National Museum, and is now curated and exhibited at Blekinge Museum in Sweden. In 2002, nine oak beds for artillery pieces were recovered by archaeologists for study and exhibition. Since that recovery, additional oak gun beds have been identified on
#858141