
Swedish King's 'forgotten' 17th-century warship found in central Stockholm - pepys
https://www.thelocal.se/20170906/swedish-kings-scepter-shipwreck-17th-century-warship-found-in-central-stockholm
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jpatokal
Relevant random factoid: the Baltic Sea is almost completely enclosed by land
and consequently unusually brackish (low in salt), which means a number of sea
creatures common in saltier seas, most notably the shipworm, can't live there.
Add in the fact that the water is really cold most of the year, and you get a
large number of unusually well-preserved wooden wrecks, most famously the
_Vasa_ , that would have long go have been eaten away in any other ocean.

[https://www.vasamuseet.se/en](https://www.vasamuseet.se/en)

Speaking of eating, access to the salty Atlantic means that the Norwegians eat
lots of shrimp, crab, mussels and even whale, none of which were historically
available on the Baltic shores of Sweden or Finland.

~~~
johansch
Sweden has a western side too, which is where we get all the delicious
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandalus_borealis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandalus_borealis)
from.

~~~
huhtenberg
Hey, you misspelled
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstromming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstromming)

~~~
johansch
:) On a serious note, every other kind of shrimp I have tasted besides
"northern prawn" (Pandalus Borealis) is just meh in comparison. To clarify:
the rest of the culinary world use non-tasteful shrimp as taste carriers.
Meanwhile, north sea shrimp are.. the primary source of taste, here.

I think you will be surprised when you eventually taste it!

That surströmming thing is mainly a bravado thing our northern people do. It's
good for headlines and machoism both, which is why it has survived, I guess.

~~~
huhtenberg
I was going to say - bah, in Canada we have exceptionally tasty shrimp on the
west coast, sold directly from the boats and it will beat your borealis to a
pulp. But then, just in case, I checked what your shrimp looks like and guess
what - it's the same one! :)

~~~
beloch
I'll second this. I recently spent some time in Sweden and, on the whole,
really enjoyed the shrimp. In particular, the shrimp salad sandwiches. There
were bad ones, of course. Bröd & Salt was a fast-food/bakery chain whose
shrimp salad wraps weren't very good at all. However, I had some at other
places that were good enough to inspire me to try my hand at them once back in
Canada.

The results with Canadian shrimp? Superior to anything in Sweden, but probably
because the shrimp went from frozen to cooked and on the plate in under an
hour, while the sandwiches I had in Sweden probably had shrimp that had been
sitting in the fridge for a while. The taste of the shrimp was very similar.
In any case, I strongly recommend trying your hand at making Swedish shrimp
salad sandwiches. They're easy to make and delicious!

Edit: It would appear I used "Wild Atlantic Prawns", which were likely
Pandalus borealis. So, probably the same species. They're very common in
Canadian supermarkets. I didn't realize how lucky we are!

~~~
tyldum
Frozen shrimp? It has to be boiled in sea water on the boat it was caught and
eaten the same day. I refuse to eat frozen shrimp.

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oskarth
I briefly worked for a company at this little island, Skeppsholmen [1], a
while back. It's beautiful and fairly hidden/quiet, despite being in central
Stockholm. There's a hostel ship you can stay at too [2], which I highly
recommend if you are in Stockholm on a budget. The Museum of Modern Arts [3]
is quite good too, as far as museums in Stockholm go. As well as the Vasa
Museum, which people have already mention.

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeppsholmen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeppsholmen)

2:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Af_Chapman_(ship)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Af_Chapman_\(ship\))

3:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moderna_museet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moderna_museet)

~~~
peterwwillis
There's a couple museums around the Chapman, but other than those it's
inconveniently located. The other hostels in old town and sodermalm are better
(and less bare-bones/no-frills). It is beautiful to look at in the moonlight,
though.

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partisan
Anyone else get a spam virus warning pop up on this site? I got one on my
iPhone.

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cmalpeli
Yup be careful on this site!

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kogus
Reminds me of the buried ships under San Francisco. There sure is a lot of
history underground.

[http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/history/hgshp1.htm](http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/history/hgshp1.htm)

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danielam
The article mentions that the ship may have participated in the Battle of
Oliwa, though there is no mention of it in the manifest on Wikipedia[0].
Regardless, the battle (and the Polish-Swedish Wars in general) are
historically very interesting in themselves, esp. given that they -- the
Deluge in particular -- were a contributing factor in the fall of Poland.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Oliwa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Oliwa)

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bitL
Right next to museums. A very convenient find! :)

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twic
A similarly convenient find in London was that the Roman amphitheatre was
right underneath the City of London's main museum [1], the Guildhall gallery.
Because the museum is on one side of Guildhall Yard, the historic seat of the
City's government. Which is located where it is because that is where the
Saxon guildhall was. Which was there because it was a nice open space amongst
the rubble of the old citadel when the Saxons recolonised London. Which it was
because it was the old Roman amphitheatre.

[1] In a sense.

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johansch
"We took some chronological samples in the summer and we received the results
which showed that wood is oak from Sweden, and it was cut in the winter
between 1612 and 1613, which is a really good, precise measure."

I'm really curious about the analysis process involved here. Is C-14 dating
that precise? How do they know it was oak from Sweden?

~~~
progre
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology)

Apperently there are enough core sample data to determine when a tree was cut
down anytime the last few thousand years!

~~~
johansch
(Thanks to everyone who pointed this out.)

Wow. This is fascinating stuff. (I didn't think this field could be so
interesting.)

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trhway
the Swedish kingdom power peak of 17th century when it conquered almost all of
the land around Baltic and deep into Poland and modern Ukraine correlates
nicely with the Little Ice Age. To the south, south/east of Baltic that was
the time of "Deluge" when among other things rows of bad harvest years
weakened the economy/society/state. Effects of climate changes :)

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willvarfar
I warmly recommend everyone visit the Vasa museum in Stockholm
[https://www.vasamuseet.se/en](https://www.vasamuseet.se/en)

Its a massive warship that capsized on her maiden voyage, and was raised in
1960s and is preserved in staggeringly amazing detail and completeness. Its
absolutely gobsmackingly breathtaking :)

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cstuder
Very warmly recommended, an awesome museum.

I especially liked the story about the Vasa construction being an example of
bad project management: If there's too much of a power difference between
different actors, people might drown.

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khazhoux
On the heels of the release of "It" in theaters tomorrow, and "The Dark Tower"
last month, this has been a great year for Stephen King!

