Archaeologists uncover remnants of forgotten city buried under popular tourist spot

Swedish archaeologists recently uncovered remnants of a forgotten 16th-century city beneath modern-day Gothenburg.The excavation was conducted by Arkeologerna, a Swedish archaeological consultancy, earlier this autumn.Researchers focused on Olskroken, a district east of central Gothenburg — Sweden’s second-largest city after Stockholm.What they found were the remnants of a place called Nya Lödöse, a short-lived town founded by Swedish regent Sten Sture the Elder in 1473.With its strategic location near the North Sea, Nya Lödöse flourished as a port and attracted traders from across Western Europe.By 1624, however, it was largely abandoned, and Gothenburg began to rise in its place.

Thanks to archaeologists’ hard work, remnants of the long-forgotten locale have turned up in recent months.Archaeologist Mattias Obrink told Fox News Digital that Nya Lödöse was designed like a typical medieval market town, with a grid surrounding a main marketplace with a town hall.“There were similarities in the physical structure of most of the plots,” he said.“All houses except the church were wooden and mostly uniform in size and architectural style.”Obrink added, “They resembled rural dwellings and the architecture didn’t show different social and economic status.What we uncovered were not complete houses — but rather the remains of walls and the boundaries of the individual plots.”Obrink worked as a project manager during the excavations.

He noted that subtle class differences emerged through the artifacts.“We found a huge amount of artifacts reflecting everyday life and surplus — like, for instance, a leather glove and a wooden barrel,” he said. “We also found many imported ceramic objects.One of the most surprising artifacts was pieces of a pocket watch from the mid-16th century.”Photos from the excavation include the remains of a house, a 16th-century leather glove and a cobbled street, along with a 17th-century wooden barrel that wa...