Kronan (ship)

"Kronan" ("The Crown") was a Swedish warship, built in Stockholm by the English shipwright Francis Sheldon and launched in 1668, commissioned 1672. She was one of the largest ships at the time and the most heavily armed warship in the world.

inking

Maneuvering during the battle of Öland in 1676, "Kronan" turned sharply without closing her gunports or reefing her sails. This caused her to heel over and water started pouring into the gunports, capsizing her. As she was sinking, a lamp in the gunpowder store fell off its hook and ignited the gunpowder, causing a violent explosion that killed most of her crew (an estimated 800 men were on board). Only 42 men survived the sinking.

During the following few years divers in diving bells were dispatched to recover some of the precious guns from the wreck, as happened after "Vasa" sank. About half of "Kronan"'s guns were retrieved.

Discovery

The wreck of "Kronan" was located in 1980 by marine archeologist Anders Franzén (who in 1956 had found the wreck of the "Vasa"). She lies at a depth of 26 meters about 6 kilometers off the coast of Öland. A powerful explosion destroyed large parts of the hull, and the foremost third of the ship is missing. Several guns have been found in and around the wreck, one of them dating as far back as 1514. The better preserved parts of the wreck have yielded large quantities of artefacts: after 2/3 of the site had been excavated, 20,000 objects had been catalogued.

In 2005 a chest was salvaged from "Kronan" which contained 6,246 silver four-öre coins and 168 mark and thaler coins, all minted 1675. This is the largest homogeneous Swedish treasure found to date.

External links

* [http://www.regalskeppetkronan.se/index.php?lang=en Official website]
* [http://www.kalmarlansmuseum.se/site/hem/eng/hem_kronan.asp Info] at the Kalmar County Museum
* [http://www.archaeology.su.se/forskning/kronan.html Osteological and Microanalytical Investigation of the Human Skeletal Remains] (a presentation of the study)
* [http://www.abc.se/~pa/uwa/kronan-e.htm Kronan] at the Nordic Underwater Archaeology website