The first investigations at the wreck site

In 1996, a group of biologists was diving in the waters of the islands of Storskär to take samples of algae. The biologists came across ceramics that were lying on the bottom of the sea. The ceramics were sent to the Maritime Museum of Finland, which was responsible for the underwater cultural heritage of Finland at the time. The Maritime Museum carried out check dives on the wreck in 1996-2000 and it turned out that in the sea bottom there were many ceramics dishes and pieces of them and a church bell, too. These were the only artefacts that were raised for several years because the Maritime Museum lacked resources and the remote location of the site and the conditions by the open sea set restrictions for the research work.

In 1998, the ceramics that had been raised by the biologists were dated to the 14th century. The experts who dated the dishes were Georg Haggrén and Heikki Hyvönen (from the National Board of Antiquities in Finland) and Dr. David Gaimster (from the Dept. of Medieval and Later Antiquities, British Museum). The dishes were from Lower Saxony (now Germany).

A sports diving association called Rannikkosukeltajat ry was given permission to carry out non-intrusive documenting of the site in 1998, 2000 and 2001. The divers outlined the site area, which helped the planning of the forthcoming archaeological investigations. The very first documenting sessions showed that it was very likely the finds were part of a cargo that was spread on the sea bottom in the course of a wrecking. It was obvious that there had been a ship in distress. Some pieces of wood were found at the site but it was too early to say for sure whether they were part of the wreck or not.

In 2000, a few researchers from the Maritime Museum and the Department of Monuments and Sites (of the National Board of Antiquities) got together in order to speed up the investigations of the site. The Finnish Cultural Foundation awarded a grant to this team of researchers in 2001 and the team started to pull together background information. Also the fieldwork sessions of 2001 and 2002 were funded by the award from the Finnish Cultural Foundation.