Discovered a merchant ship wreck 400 years on the ocean floor

The team found traces of Portuguese merchant ships with pepper, artillery pieces and many other antiques.

The wreck from the late 16th to early 17th century was discovered during dredging at the mouth of the Tagus River last month, Fox News reported. This is a Portuguese ship carrying out a spice exchange between the country and India, according to the Cascais city council.

The merchant wreck is an important archaeological discovery of Portugal over the past 10 years.(Photo: Reuters).

Divers reach the ancient merchant ship at the bottom of the sea.(Photo: Reuters).

The ship detection area is at a depth of about 12m, an area of ​​100x50m. There, the expert team also found pepper, the shell money used in slave trade, the pieces of the Portuguese national emblem and the porcelain of the Ming Emperor Emperor of China.

This is one of the most prominent archaeological findings in Portugal over the past 10 years, according to Carlos Carreiras, mayor of Cascais. In addition to Cascais, the University of Lisbon and the Portuguese navy also participated in archaeological work.

The ship is located in Cascais City Underwater Archaeological Zone (PROCASC), which contains many wrecks from Roman times. It operates during the Portuguese period as the center of a wide exchange network connecting Europe, Africa, Asia and South America.