Workers replacing a sewer in Wijk bij Duurstede, the Dutch town close to Utrecht, have uncovered what may be the first remains of a ship from the ancient Dorestad — the Frankish empire’s most important North Sea trading port for more than two centuries. That is according to the Municipality of Wijk bij Duurstede, which confirmed the rare find after a volunteer on site spotted a protruding timber, prompting municipal authorities to quickly bring in professional archaeologists.
The beam measures 3.2 metres in length and 30 centimetres in thickness. Cut notches, shaping marks, and worked surfaces are consistent with ship construction rather than land-based building, and fragments of pottery found nearby suggest the timber belongs to a broader deposit, not an isolated remnant.
Archaeologist Anne de Hoop, who is leading the investigation, said the beam may originally have been even larger. It was immediately wrapped and transferred to a controlled storage environment to prevent drying and structural damage. Dendrochronological analysis — examining the growth rings preserved within the wood — will now be used to establish a precise date, a process expected to take several months.
Specialists have tentatively linked the find to the Carolingian period — roughly 700 to 800 AD — a time when Wijk bij Duurstede occupied the site of ancient Dorestad, one of the Frankish world’s most active commercial ports. Goods moved through its Rhine harbours and out into North Sea shipping lanes; Scandinavian traders were frequent counterparts long before Viking raids began targeting the same waterways in the 9th century.
If the Carolingian dating holds, it would be the first confirmed ship remains of that era found in the area. Researchers have not ruled out a later origin — the beam’s dimensions could sit equally well within the medieval cog tradition, the heavy-timbered vessel that underpinned Hanseatic League commerce from the 13th century onward.
