Marine Archaeologists Discover Famous 1600s Äpplet Shipwreck In Sweden

Archeologists discovered the wreck of a warship that sunk over 300 years ago in Sweden, the country’s Vrak Museum of Wrecks, or Vrak, announced Monday.

A team of marine archeologists noticed a pile of rocks while scuba diving, and saw the hull of the wreck of the famed warship, Äpplet, was sticking out of the rubble, according to Vrak.

The 17th-century warship is the sister ship to Vasa, which famously capsized on its maiden voyage, according to Vrak. The Äpplet and the Vasa were part of a group of four ships ordered to be made by King Gustavus Adolphus in 1625, CNN reported. (RELATED: Shipwreck Of Ernest Shakleton’s Endurance Found At The Bottom Of The Antarctic After 107 Years)

A video shared online by Vrack shows the wreck of Äpplet as marine archaeologists take measurements, pictures, and footage of the discovery.

A shipbuilder named Hein Jacobsson built Vasa and Äpplet, according to CNN. Jacobsson had reportedly tried to improve the design of Äpplet after Vasa sunk.

Vasa now lives at the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, where the ship can be seen in full, according to the museum’s website. The ship is reportedly covered in wooden sculptures numbering into the hundreds.

Jim Hansson, a marine archaeologists at Vrak, said in a statement the team’s “pulses spiked” when they began to realize how similar Äpplet was to Vasa, CNN reported. Through measurement and analysis, the team found the sister ship to Vasa, marking a special occasion after the long-awaited discovery of the Äpplet shipwreck.