Collection of 500-year-old spices, including saffron and peppercorns, found in Denmark shipwreck

The ship, called Gribshunden, belonged to King John of Denmark and sank off the coast of Sweden in 1495 after catching fire

The spices, which include saffron, peppercorns and ginger, would have been a symbol of high status

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Researchers Mikael Larsson and Brendan Foley examine samples of saffron found after nearly 500 years on the wreck of the Gribshunden, in a laboratory at Lund University in Sweden. Photo: Reuters

Published: 4:34am, 6 Mar 2023

Archaeologists have found a collection of well-preserved 500-year-old spices in the wreck of a royal ship that sank off the Baltic coast of Sweden.

The royal ship, called Gribshunden, belonged to King John of Denmark, and it caught fire and sank off the coast of Sweden in 1495.

The spices, which include saffron, peppercorns and ginger, were discovered in the silt of the boat in an excavation led by Brendan Foley, an archaeological scientist at Lund University, Reuters reported.

“The Baltic is strange – it’s low oxygen, low temperature, low salinity, so many organic things are well preserved in the Baltic where they wouldn’t be well preserved elsewhere in the world ocean system,” Foley said, reported Reuters. “But to find spices like this is quite extraordinary.”

The spices accompanying King John on his trip to Sweden would have been a symbol of high status as saffron or cloves would have been imported from outside Europe and would have been very expensive.

“This is the only archaeological context where we’ve found saffron. So it’s very unique, and it’s very special,” said Lund University researcher Mikael Larsson, who has been studying the findings.