A find of great importance: the boat of Britsum.
In 1906, a boat, or at least ship’s timbers, were unearthed during commercial quarrying of the terp (dwelling mound) of Britsum (province of Fryslân/Friesland). It was recently found that a number of fragments have survived; they are stored in the Northern Archaeological Depot at Nuis. Since finds of vessels and ship’s timbers in the formerly maritime landscape of the northern Netherlands are extremely rare, and knowledge about ships and seafaring in this area is limited, these fragments have been thoroughly examined. A sample was radiocarbon-dated, with an outcome of 1246 ± 15BP, 685-778 calAD, a period with hardly any finds of ship’s timbers in the Netherlands. The two fragments that were examined were frames: a knee and a v-shaped floor timber of a flat-bottomed vessel. Their shape shows that this may have been a boat with two pointed ends, in Dutch a punter. Since part of this boat may still be hidden in the remainder of the terp of Britsum, further investigation of this site is recommended.
