A silk dress was 400 years at the bottom of the sea in a ghost ship: it is still intact today

Dutch experts continue to investigate the mystery surrounding the owners of two dresses that remained for nearly four centuries inside a sunken ship near the texel islandmore than 100 kilometers from Amsterdam.

The impressive silk dress and another silver one were found in a shipwreck which was given the name Palmhoutwrak (palm wreck), in the Wedden Sea.

The sinking of the merchant ship carrying it occurred around 1650 and was all but forgotten. His whereabouts and history of him were left in the dark until a team of divers discovered his remains in 2014.

Among the items recovered are book covers, one of which the researchers say could link the find to the stuart dynasty; and what looked like 17th century feminine toiletries.

But what most attracted the attention of researchers was a silk dress in good condition and another silver

All the cargo recovered from the bottom of the sea is displayed in the Kaap Skills Museum, on Texel. However, the team of scientists, divers, oceanographers and archaeologists has not yet been able to find out neither the name of the ship nor the identity of the passengers who has traveled there.

“The idea that this dress has been sitting at the bottom of the sea for centuries is insane,” she said. Corina Hordijk, artistic director of Kaap Skil and three other museums on the island of about 14,000 inhabitants. “The last person who touched it before this was probably the person who used it,” the woman told the New York Times.

Experts have come to one conclusion: both suits were about 30 years old when they went down with the ship. The silk garment had a wider life and it was probably for an elderly woman. While the silver dress could have been a wedding dresswhich could mean they had different owners.

“These dresses were incredibly expensive,” she said. Arnold Van Bruggendirector of a forthcoming documentary about the discovery, speculating to whom they would belong women of “a royal court”.

three hypotheses manage specialists on the origin of objects. The first version assumes that the dress belonged to a Troupe who fled from England.

The second is based on an investigation by the University of Oxford, according to which all this cargo belonged to the wife of an ambassador and was carried on a trade route linking England with Constantinople.

The third possibility is that the items belonged to a wealthy Eastern European family fleeing the Thirty Years War.

Even though the dress now has a colorful look that includes cream, red and brown tintsit is probable that the dress was originally monotonous and that the initial colors have disappeared, since in the same box where it was found there were stains due to the remains of dye from other garments.

Thijs Coenenmaritime archaeologist of the Dutch Cultural Heritage Agency, explained that more expeditions are needed to unravel the mystery of the ship and the clothes, and that this “requires a lot of time and money”.