A group of Dutch experts is trying to understand the mystery that surrounds a dress left for about 400 years in a sunken ship near the island of Texel, at a distance of about 100 kilometers away. The ship, which sank in 1650 , had been virtually forgotten. Then, in 2014, a team of divers found the wreck and inside a beautiful silk dress and one in silver :
In the same underwater expedition, covers of some books and women’s toilet accessories from the 17th century were also recovered . To date it has not been possible to understand which specific ship was found or who was traveling on that ship. As explained in the New York Times “The idea that this dress has been sitting at the bottom of the sea for centuries is crazy. The last person who touched it before us was probably the person who used it“.
At the time of the sinking, the dresses were about 30 years old, the silk one was certainly older and belonged to a woman of a certain age, while the silver dress was most likely a wedding dress. Most likely these are highly expensive clothes for the time.
There are three hypotheses credited to the story :
– A theater company escaped from England;
– Based on a research carried out by an Oxford University historian, it is thought that the clothes could have belonged to the deceased wife of an ambassador and should have arrived in Constantinople;
– The clothes and accessories could have belonged to a wealthy European family fleeing the Thirty Years War.
Obviously understanding and delving more into the story requires a lot of money and therefore it will take time.
