Beneath the tidal flats of the North Sea lie the remnants of Rungholt, a medieval town lost to a storm in 1362. Recent discoveries are shedding light on its wealthy past and the fragile balance between human ambition and nature’s power.
The lost medieval settlements of the district of Edomsharde, which includes Rungholt, were submerged during the devastating storm surge of 1362 and have long been shrouded in mystery. Now, researchers are piecing together the history of this once-thriving community, offering fresh insights into how people lived and worked on the vulnerable coastal marshes of northern Germany. Over a decade of interdisciplinary research has revealed the complex relationship between medieval settlers and the environment they sought to tame.
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Teams from institutions including Kiel University (CAU), Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), the Leibniz Center for Archaeology (LEIZA-ZBSA), and the Schleswig-Holstein State Archaeological Office (ALSH) have combined geophysical surveys, excavations, and geoarchaeological analysis to map this lost world. Their findings, recently published in Nature Scientific Reports, provide the first comprehensive reconstruction of the medieval landscape of Edomsharde, its settlement patterns, and the environmental transformations that made it both productive and perilous.
One of the most significant discoveries is the layout of Rungholt, a settlement mythologised in local folklore as the “Atlantis of the North Sea.” Among the findings is the ground plan of a 40-by-15-metre church, which researchers identified west of today’s Nordstrand peninsula. “The church must have been one of the main churches of the medieval Edomsharde. The size of the church and other finds indicate a very wealthy community,” explains Dr. Ruth Blankenfeldt from LEIZA-ZBSA.
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The team’s work also revealed a network of 64 mounds, known as terps, spread across 10 square kilometres. These mounds, artificially raised to protect dwellings from flooding, are a hallmark of medieval coastal settlements. During this year’s fieldwork, an additional 19 previously unknown mounds were discovered, significantly expanding the known footprint of the community. “The newly discovered terp traces close the gap between the harbour area and the church area. What we had already suspected is therefore true: today’s tidal flats were densely populated back then,” says Blankenfeldt.
The settlements’ layout reflects the ingenuity of medieval land reclamation practices. Prior to human intervention, the region was dominated by peatlands, as described by Dr. Hanna Hadler, a geographer at JGU. “We found that this settlement was located in a coastal lowland where the pre-medieval natural conditions were dominated by extensive peat areas.” To make the land arable, settlers extracted the peat to expose fertile marsh soils, a process that enabled agriculture but gradually lowered the land, increasing its vulnerability to flooding. According to Dr. Bente Sven Majchczack from Kiel University, “The cultivation measures certainly enabled profitable agricultural use for a certain period of time. In the long term, however, peat extraction and drainage of the fields made the land deeper. This drastically increased the vulnerability to flooding, culminating in the storm surge of 1362 and the loss of land.”
The study also highlights the challenges of researching such a unique environment. Fieldwork in the Wadden Sea requires researchers to navigate tidal flats, carrying equipment over mud and silt during narrow time windows around low tide. “We can only manage a limited workload during each campaign, and many questions about the former settlement structures remain unanswered,” says Dr. Dennis Wilken from Kiel University. Despite these constraints, the team has achieved remarkable results, including the recovery of artefacts such as shaped bricks, medieval pottery, and metal objects that provide further clues about life in Rungholt.
The finds also offer a glimpse into the settlement’s socio-economic status. The size of the church, along with the quality of the artefacts, suggests a community of considerable wealth. However, the researchers point out that this prosperity came at a cost. The environmental modifications that supported the community’s growth ultimately made the landscape less stable, leaving it vulnerable to catastrophic flooding.
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The storm surge of 1362, known as the “Grote Mandrenke,” obliterated much of the region, including Rungholt and its neighbouring settlements. While some questions about the area remain unanswered, the research team’s work is closing crucial gaps in the historical understanding of medieval life in the North Frisian Wadden Sea.
“This work gives us a deeper understanding of how medieval communities lived on the edge of the sea,” says geophysicist Sarah Bäumler from Kiel University. “It’s not just about the past—it’s about the resilience and vulnerabilities of societies that depend on fragile environments.”
Further studies are planned to uncover more details about the area’s history and the people who lived there. With each campaign, researchers add another layer to the story of Rungholt, revealing not only the ingenuity of its inhabitants but also the enduring lessons their experiences offer for modern coastal communities grappling with rising sea levels.
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The article, “The discovery of the church of Rungholt, a landmark for the drowned medieval landscapes of the Wadden Sea World Heritage,” by Dennis Wilken, Hanna Hadler, Bente Sven Majchczack, Ruth Blankenfeldt, Oliver Auge, Sarah Bäumler, Dirk Bienen-Scholt, Ulf Ickerodt, Stefanie Klooß, Antonia Reiß, Timo Willershäuser, Wolfgang Rabbel and Andreas Vött, is published in Nature Scientific Reports. Click here to read it.
Beneath the tidal flats of the North Sea lie the remnants of Rungholt, a medieval town lost to a storm in 1362. Recent discoveries are shedding light on its wealthy past and the fragile balance between human ambition and nature’s power.
The lost medieval settlements of the district of Edomsharde, which includes Rungholt, were submerged during the devastating storm surge of 1362 and have long been shrouded in mystery. Now, researchers are piecing together the history of this once-thriving community, offering fresh insights into how people lived and worked on the vulnerable coastal marshes of northern Germany. Over a decade of interdisciplinary research has revealed the complex relationship between medieval settlers and the environment they sought to tame.
Teams from institutions including Kiel University (CAU), Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), the Leibniz Center for Archaeology (LEIZA-ZBSA), and the Schleswig-Holstein State Archaeological Office (ALSH) have combined geophysical surveys, excavations, and geoarchaeological analysis to map this lost world. Their findings, recently published in Nature Scientific Reports, provide the first comprehensive reconstruction of the medieval landscape of Edomsharde, its settlement patterns, and the environmental transformations that made it both productive and perilous.
One of the most significant discoveries is the layout of Rungholt, a settlement mythologised in local folklore as the “Atlantis of the North Sea.” Among the findings is the ground plan of a 40-by-15-metre church, which researchers identified west of today’s Nordstrand peninsula. “The church must have been one of the main churches of the medieval Edomsharde. The size of the church and other finds indicate a very wealthy community,” explains Dr. Ruth Blankenfeldt from LEIZA-ZBSA.
The team’s work also revealed a network of 64 mounds, known as terps, spread across 10 square kilometres. These mounds, artificially raised to protect dwellings from flooding, are a hallmark of medieval coastal settlements. During this year’s fieldwork, an additional 19 previously unknown mounds were discovered, significantly expanding the known footprint of the community. “The newly discovered terp traces close the gap between the harbour area and the church area. What we had already suspected is therefore true: today’s tidal flats were densely populated back then,” says Blankenfeldt.
The settlements’ layout reflects the ingenuity of medieval land reclamation practices. Prior to human intervention, the region was dominated by peatlands, as described by Dr. Hanna Hadler, a geographer at JGU. “We found that this settlement was located in a coastal lowland where the pre-medieval natural conditions were dominated by extensive peat areas.” To make the land arable, settlers extracted the peat to expose fertile marsh soils, a process that enabled agriculture but gradually lowered the land, increasing its vulnerability to flooding. According to Dr. Bente Sven Majchczack from Kiel University, “The cultivation measures certainly enabled profitable agricultural use for a certain period of time. In the long term, however, peat extraction and drainage of the fields made the land deeper. This drastically increased the vulnerability to flooding, culminating in the storm surge of 1362 and the loss of land.”
The study also highlights the challenges of researching such a unique environment. Fieldwork in the Wadden Sea requires researchers to navigate tidal flats, carrying equipment over mud and silt during narrow time windows around low tide. “We can only manage a limited workload during each campaign, and many questions about the former settlement structures remain unanswered,” says Dr. Dennis Wilken from Kiel University. Despite these constraints, the team has achieved remarkable results, including the recovery of artefacts such as shaped bricks, medieval pottery, and metal objects that provide further clues about life in Rungholt.
The finds also offer a glimpse into the settlement’s socio-economic status. The size of the church, along with the quality of the artefacts, suggests a community of considerable wealth. However, the researchers point out that this prosperity came at a cost. The environmental modifications that supported the community’s growth ultimately made the landscape less stable, leaving it vulnerable to catastrophic flooding.
The storm surge of 1362, known as the “Grote Mandrenke,” obliterated much of the region, including Rungholt and its neighbouring settlements. While some questions about the area remain unanswered, the research team’s work is closing crucial gaps in the historical understanding of medieval life in the North Frisian Wadden Sea.
“This work gives us a deeper understanding of how medieval communities lived on the edge of the sea,” says geophysicist Sarah Bäumler from Kiel University. “It’s not just about the past—it’s about the resilience and vulnerabilities of societies that depend on fragile environments.”
Further studies are planned to uncover more details about the area’s history and the people who lived there. With each campaign, researchers add another layer to the story of Rungholt, revealing not only the ingenuity of its inhabitants but also the enduring lessons their experiences offer for modern coastal communities grappling with rising sea levels.
The article, “The discovery of the church of Rungholt, a landmark for the drowned medieval landscapes of the Wadden Sea World Heritage,” by Dennis Wilken, Hanna Hadler, Bente Sven Majchczack, Ruth Blankenfeldt, Oliver Auge, Sarah Bäumler, Dirk Bienen-Scholt, Ulf Ickerodt, Stefanie Klooß, Antonia Reiß, Timo Willershäuser, Wolfgang Rabbel and Andreas Vött, is published in Nature Scientific Reports. Click here to read it.
Top Image: © Jan Steffen, Cluster ROOTS/Uni Kiel
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