Two 18th-century shipwrecks off the coast of Costa Rica, in the past concept to were pirate ships, were showed to be two Danish slave ships, a museum stated Sunday.
“Investigations of send timbers, bricks from the shipment and clay pipes discovered all over underwater excavations” had decided the id of 2 vessels shipwrecked in 1710, Denmark’s National Museum stated in a remark.
Marine archaeologists known the slave ships Fridericus Quartus and Christianus Quintus, which, consistent with historic resources, had been wrecked off the coast of Central The us in 1710, stated the museum. The museum additionally launched pictures of Andreas Kallmeyer Bloch and David Gregory digging underwater and excavating bricks and picket from the wreckage.
John Fhær Engedal Nissen/The Nationwide Museum of Denmark. 
Fridericus Quartus used to be set on fireplace, whilst Christianus Quintus used to be wrecked within the surf after its anchor line used to be reduce. Till now, it has now not been transparent precisely the place the ships had been misplaced.
The museum added that during Costa Rica, it had lengthy been identified that two wrecks had been situated within the waters of the Cahuita Nationwide Park.
“For a few years, alternatively, they had been regarded as pirate ships. But if American marine archaeologists in 2015 discovered yellow bricks in one of the vital wrecks, new questions emerged in regards to the historical past of the ships,” the museum stated.
An underwater excavation used to be performed in 2023. It used to be a part of the Nationwide Museum’s new analysis heart, Njord, which the museum stated is making plans to excavate a number of Danish shipwrecks in a foreign country.
Jakob Olling/The Nationwide Museum of Denmark 
“The analyses are very convincing and we not have any doubts that those are the wrecks of the 2 Danish slave ships,” Gregory, a analysis professor at Denmark’s Nationwide Museum, stated within the remark.
“The bricks are Danish and the similar is going for the timbers, which can be moreover charred and sooty from a hearth. This suits completely with the historic accounts mentioning that one of the vital ships burned,” Gregory added.
Fellow marine archaeologist Bloch, who is additionally a museum curator, known as it “for sure the craziest archaeological excavation I have but been a part of.”
“No longer simplest as it issues a great deal to the native inhabitants, but in addition as a result of it is one of the vital dramatic shipwrecks within the historical past of Denmark, and now we all know precisely the place it came about,” the marine archaeologist stated.
The Danish executive banned the transatlantic slave business in 1792, however the nation did not abolish slavery till part a century later, in 1847, consistent with the museum.