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Medieval IKEA church roof found on Dutch reclaimed land
Land reclamation work in Almere, in the north central Netherlands’ province of Flevoland, has uncovered beams from a medieval construction kit for a church roof. The beams date to the 15th century and were likely being transported by ship when they fell overboard or sank with the ship in the Zuiderzee, today a freshwater lake, but an open waterway on the North Sea in the 1400s.
The Zuiderzee was at different times a lake and a North Sea bay, depending on sea levels and coastal erosion. Construction of the Afsluitdijk dam in the 20th century caused its current lake incarnation, and Almere was built on land reclaimed from it between 1959 and 1968, making it the Netherlands’ youngest city. Despite its youth, there are archaeological remains in the deep layers of the former bay/lake under the city going back to the Neolithic.
Archaeologists discovered the beams while surveying the site of future development in the Almere Pampus district. Archaeologist Yftinus van Popta drilled down to create a “viewing hole” and spotted the wood in an excellent state of preservation thanks to the waterlogged environment. It’s a pack of at least 80 beams that were assembled using marks carved by the carpenters into the wood as instructions. When fitted together, the beams would have formed a pointed roof approximately 9 by 22 meters (30 by 72 feet).
In what is now Almere Pampus, the remains of at least three shipwrecks were found in the 1980s on one plot, as well as parts of the late medieval church roof. When the beams were found, they were reburied somewhere else. A conscious choice, says van Popta: “If you bring it up, it will dry out, and then you have to do something with it. But conservation is very expensive.” The exact location of the reburial has not been well preserved.
Based on old aerial photographs, overview drawings and descriptions by the archaeologists at the time, he got a suspicion where the reburied church roof should be. A drilling investigation was carried out there. Plastic and wood were soon found, exactly as expected, because old photographs showed that the church roof had been covered with agricultural plastic.
It is unique to find a wooden church roof as a shipload in its entirety. Van Popta: “If the beams are in good condition, you could still put it together as intended, so to speak, and that is very special.” The municipality is having additional research done to determine the precise dating of the wood and to gain more clarity about the ship on which it was transported.
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