Archaeologists have made an astounding discovery as they unearthed traces of a medieval village that had been lost beneath the ocean for 600 years, according to a report by VICE.
The village, known as Rungholt, was among several European settlements that mysteriously vanished overnight when a fierce storm tide struck the North Sea coast in January 1362.
The Great Drowning of Men
This catastrophic event, the Great Drowning of Men, resulted in the loss of an estimated 25,000 lives and submerged entire towns. Rungholt, in particular, earned the moniker "the Atlantis of the North Sea."
Today, the traces of this long-lost village lie hidden beneath the muddy flats near the German island of Hallig Südfall, only accessible during low tide.
Bente Majchczack, an archaeologist from the ROOTS Cluster of Excellence at Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, described Rungholt as one of the parishes in North Frisia that succumbed to the 1362 flood.
Although it is not the sole submerged medieval village in Europe, the immense cultural landscape lost, the myths woven around it, and its remarkable state of preservation make Rungholt truly unique.
Majchczack and the team behind the RUNGHOLT project, a research initiative supported by the German Research Foundation, have been extensively surveying the site for years. Recently, they made a significant breakthrough when they discovered a previously unknown series of medieval mounds stretching over a mile along the tidal flats.
Through geophysical probes and sediment core excavations, they revealed the outline of a church measuring approximately 40 feet by 130 feet. The architecture of the submerged building bears a resemblance to other surviving medieval churches in the Frisia region. While two smaller churches had previously been identified in the area, the newly found larger structure is considered Rungholt's main church.
The revelation of Rungholt's central church sheds light on a community that was obliterated by the catastrophic flood that peaked in January 1362.
This devastating event, driven by an extratropical cyclone, ravaged extensive areas of the North Sea coast across the British Isles, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark.
Frisian settlers had inhabited the marshes, fenlands, and peat bogs of North Frisia since the 11th and 12th centuries, transforming the landscape by constructing dikes, draining swamps, and removing peat for agricultural purposes.
However, these alterations also made the settlements vulnerable to the sea's encroachment and exceptional storm surges, resulting in breaches and subsequent flooding.
The Legend of Rungholt
Throughout the centuries, Europe has been captivated by the legend of Rungholt, giving rise to rumors suggesting that the villagers met a divine punishment for their transgressions. However, it was not until the 1920s that a farmer named Andreas Busch explored the flats surrounding Hallig Südfall.
Busch methodically documented the remnants he encountered, establishing a link between these traces and the fabled Rungholt. Nevertheless, the exact whereabouts of these vanished societies, including the enigmatic Rungholt, are still shrouded in mystery.
The RUNGHOLT project aims to comprehensively comprehend the scale of the settlement, its integration into the surrounding landscape, connections to neighboring areas, and how the villagers shaped the environment. However, the team notes that there is still a lot to be found to unravel this long-lost village.
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