Workers at the site of the future World Trade Center unearthed on Tuesday the curved hull of long-buried wooden ship.
The ship had lain undisturbed since the 1700s, archeologists estimate.
“By Wednesday, the outlines made it plain: a 30-foot length of a wood-hulled vessel had been discovered about 20 to 30 feet below street level on the World Trade Center site, the first such large-scale archaeological find along the Manhattan waterfront since 1982, when an 18th-century cargo ship came to light at 175 Water Street. The area under excavation, between Liberty and Cedar Streets, had not been dug out for the original trade center.”
While the workers may have cursed Tuesday’s rainy skies, the wet weather may have helped preserve the fragile, 200-plus-year-old wood, which started crumbling as soon as its protective covering of dirt was removed.
But the already-delayed construction would stop for no ship, and archeologists rushed to document the find. “We’re trying to record it as quickly as possible and do the analysis later,” Doug Mackey, the chief regional archaeologist for the New York State Preservation Office, told the Times.