‘Some Kind of Fantasy Animal’: ‘Sea Monster’ Figurehead Recovered From 500-Year Old Shipwreck

The researchers apparently weren’t immediately able to establish exactly what animal the figurehead found at the sunken ship represented.

A peculiar discovery was made by archaeologists studying the shipwreck of the Gribshunden, a Danish flagship that sank off the coast of Sweden in 1495, the Daily Express reports.

According to the newspaper, the find in question is a wooden figurehead depicting a “doglike figure or monster”, which appears to be “one of the oldest known preserved wooden carvings of its kind in the world, preserved by its submersion for centuries”.

​Marcus Sandekjer of the Blekinge Museum also remarked that they “don’t have ships like this that have been recovered at all”.

The figurehead is far from the only intriguing discovery made at Gribshunden’s remains, as archaeologists also found well-preserved remains of a sturgeon there.

Sourse: sputniknews.com