A 19th century shipwreck in the Baltic Sea with an extensive cargo of wine, champagne, mineral water, and other historical items was recently discovered by a team of Polish divers.
According to a post on the Baltictech Conference’s website, a team of divers on the M/Y Espace ship made the discovery on a recent trip to Sweden. The Baltictech Conference explained that the team noticed a wreck that “appeared to be an old fishing vessel” on the sonar system.
Since the team was already planning a different dive that day, the Baltictech Conference said there were “doubts whether there would be anyone willing to go down.” However, two divers ultimately decided to take a closer look at the wreckage.
According to the post, when the divers had been gone for roughly two hours, the team “already knew that there was something very interesting on the bottom.”
“We encountered a 19th century sailing ship in very good condition, loaded to the sides with champagne, wine, mineral water and porcelaine,” the Baltictech Conference added. “There was so much of it that it was difficult for us to judge the quantities. We certainly saw more than 100 bottles of champagne and baskets of mineral water in clay bottles. And it was this water that proved most interesting and led us to further clues.”
READ MORE: Pic: 300-year-old warship discovered off coast of southern state
According to the post, mineral water was “treated almost like medicine” and was used by royalty during the 19th century.
“I’ve been a diver for 40 years. From time to time, you see one or two bottles,” Tomasz Stachura, the leader of the diving team, said in a statement to BBC News. “But I’ve never seen crates with bottles of alcohol, and baskets of water, like this.”
Stachura suggested that the ship might have been navigating to Stockholm or St. Petersburg before it sank. The diving team leader noted that a vessel belonging to Tsar Nicholas I was lost in the same region in 1852.
“That would explain why the ship had this cargo – which was all very exclusive,” Stachura told BBC News. “Usually, when we find wrecks the cargo is very cheap.”
A picture of the recent discovery was shared on social media by New York Times World. The photo shows the historic bottles found in the Baltic Sea wreckage.
