A team of scientists from the University of Hull had set out to find the sunken Ravenser Odd. Now they seem to have found what they are looking for.

Few things are more mysterious and exciting than discovering a lost city shrouded in legend. While Atlantis is still being searched for, relatively much is now known about the German Rungholt. And in Great Britain, too, a hitherto undiscovered lost metropolis is now being tackled. A research team wants to use modern means to find out once and for all the exact location of the disappeared Ravenser Odd. The experts had already started their search in February. Now they came across the first finds.

The team led by Professor Dan Parsons from the University of Hull was already quite certain that the medieval trading center Ravenser Odd must have been in the Humber area off the Yorkshire coast. In recent years, however, it has always been assumed that the remains of the city would be at least two and a half kilometers from the current shoreline. The first surprise the scientists experienced was that they had already found finds in an area only a few hundred meters from the coast.

Ravenser Odd was surprisingly close to the coast

Remains of walls and bricks have been discovered so far. The scientists have now started to scan the area with state-of-the-art sonar devices in order to first identify the harbor walls of the sunken settlement and then, at best, to be able to produce a 3D map of the city plan. “The location was strategically perfect for a port,” says Dan Parsons of the newspaper “Mirror”. “Unfortunately, the coast here was always in motion.” This made the search for Ravenser Odd so difficult, as no one knew exactly where the land stretched in the early 14th century.

Ravenser Odd sank when a powerful storm tide hit the North Sea in 1362. In England it has gone down in history as “The Second Great Drowning” (the “First Great Drowning” refers to a storm surge in 1219). The catastrophe is also known as “St. Marcellus flood” or – in Germany – as “Grote Mandrenke”. More than 25,000 people died.

The scientists are certain that the wall remains found are part of Ravenser Odd and that they have found the sunken city. “It’s fascinating, exciting and exhilarating. The exact location of this medieval metropolis has never been pinpointed before,” says Dan Parsons. “But now we have the tools and the technology to get things done out there.”

Quelle:  “Mirror”