Dutch experts continue to investigate the mystery surrounding the owners of two dresses that remained for almost four centuries inside a sunken ship near the
island of Texel
, more than 100 kilometers from Amsterdam.
The stunning silk dress and another silver dress were found in a shipwreck called the Palmhoutwrak (
Palmwood Wreck
) in the Wedden Sea.
The sinking of the
merchant ship
that carried it occurred around 1650 and was almost forgotten.
His whereabouts and his story were left in the dark until a team of divers
discovered his remains in 2014.
The silver one was one of the two dresses found inside the so-called "Palmwood Shipwreck", in the north of the Netherlands.
Among the salvaged objects are book covers, one of which researchers believe could link the find to the
Stuart dynasty
;
and what appeared to be 17th century women's toiletries.
But what most caught the attention of the investigators was
a silk suit in good condition
and another silver one.
All the cargo that was salvaged at the bottom of the sea is on display at the
Kaap Skil Museum
, on Texel.
However, the team of scientists, divers, oceanographers and archaeologists have not yet been able to discover
the name of the ship or the identity of the passengers
traveling on it.
The mysterious dress is on display at the Kaap Skil Museum in Texel, the Netherlands.
"The idea that this dress has been at the bottom of the sea for centuries is crazy," said
Corina Hordijk,
artistic director of Kaap Skil and three other museums on the island of about 14,000 people.
"The last person who touched it before this was probably the person who used it," the woman told The New York Times.
The experts came to a conclusion: both dresses were about 30 years old when they sank with the ship.
The silk garment had a
wider waist
and was probably for an older woman.
While
the silver dress could have been a wedding dress
, which could mean they had different owners.
"These costumes were incredibly expensive," argued
Arnold van Bruggen
, director of a forthcoming documentary on the discovery, surmising that they would have belonged to
women from "a royal court."
One of the book covers found inside a merchant ship that sank around 1650 in the Wedden Sea, north of the Netherlands.
Three hypotheses
handle the specialists about the origin of the objects.
The first version assumes that the dress belonged to a
theater company
fleeing England.
The second is based on an investigation by the University of Oxford, which says that all this cargo belonged to the wife of an ambassador and was
transported on a trade route that linked England with Constantinople.
The third possibility is that the objects belonged to a wealthy Eastern European family escaping the
Thirty Years War.
A wooden drawer, another of the objects discovered at the bottom of the Wedden Sea by a team of divers.
Although the dress now has a colorful appearance that includes
cream, red, and brown tints
, it is likely that the dress was originally a single tone and that the initial colorants have disappeared, as the same chest where it was found was stained by debris. dye other garments.
Thijs Coenen
, a maritime archaeologist at the Netherlands Agency for Cultural Heritage, explained that more expeditions are needed to reveal the mystery of the ship and the dresses, and that this "requires a lot of time and money".
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