18th Century "Ghost Ship" Found at Ground Zero

On Tuesday, workers excavating the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan stumbled upon an astonishing find: the hull of an 18th century ship. Archaeologists were summoned, and upon further investigation, the hull turned out to be more than 30 feet long, making it the biggest archeological find in Manhattan since 1982. The wooden frame was "so perfectly contoured that [it was] clearly part of a ship," an archaeologist told the Times, noting that the whole ship may be two to three times bigger than the portion found. Experts suspect that the ship was used as landfill material and say that it probably hasn't been disturbed since the 18th century. Because construction couldn't be stopped and the timber began to deteriorate as soon as it hit open air, archaeologists had to race against time and the weather to take the ship's measurements. "I kept thinking of how closely it came to being destroyed," an expert told the Guardian.

Credits: New York Times