Nydam Ship Travels with Schenker to its Rendezvous with the Queen of Denmark

News Item Entered: Tuesday, May 06, 2003

The world-famous Nydam ship, one of the most important Northern European archaeological finds from the 4th century AD, recently traveled from the Provincial Museum in Schloss Gottorf, a castle in northern Germany, to the National Museum in Copenhagen via a special transport provided by Schenker’s German subsidiary. On May 9, 2003 in Copenhagen, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark will open an exhibit featuring this unique Iron Age ship.

The ship, named for the location where it was discovered, was unearthed in 1863 from Nydam Bog, near Oster-Sottrup, Denmark. The oak-planked body of the warship is about 23 meters long and 3.5 meters wide. The vessel, which was built in approx. 320 AD, could transport up to 45 men.

To move the ship to Copenhagen, Schenker commissioned the construction of a special crate in which the ship rested on custom-made padded supports. The transport crate, with its valuable cargo, was lifted millimeter by millimeter on four air cushions and slid out of the hall, and then loaded onto a flatbed lorry using an auto crane.




The 350 kilometer journey from Schleswig to Copenhagen turned into a media spectacle: The Nydam ship, with its convoy of backup and escort vehicles, was accompanied on land and in the air by camera teams and an enthusiastic public. Thousands of spectators watched in Copenhagen as the transport container, with the Nydam ship inside, was lowered by a crane through the roof of a hall and into the Danish National Museum.




With annual sales of Euro 6.4 billion, 35,000 employees and about 1,100 offices around the world, the Stinnes subsidiary Schenker is one of the world's leading providers of integrated logistics services, offering land transport, air and sea freight as well as comprehensive logistics solutions and global supply chain management from a single source. Stinnes is a Deutsche Bahn AG company.