Tree Dating to Help Close Case of 400-Year-Old Dutch Ship Under New York Streets

International researchers will next month examine the suspected remains of a 17th-century vessel, long believed to be the Tyger, the Dutch ship commanded by famed explorer Adriaen Block. Wood Central understands that the Museum of the City of New York (MCNY) and the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE) are leading efforts to study preserved timbers from the ship to determine beyond all doubt whether the fragments can be fully traced to the 1613 shipwreck.

Block’s Tyger was destroyed by fire in New York Harbour shortly after arriving from Amsterdam, marking one of the earliest documented Dutch encounters with the region and making the vessel a symbol of New York’s colonial origins and its early Dutch presence.

The mystery began in 1916, when subway workers uncovered a charred keelson and three rib frames beneath Greenwich and Dey Streets in Lower Manhattan. Based on the location, archaeological context and age, the remains were attributed to the Tyger and celebrated as a rare physical link to early 17th‑century Dutch maritime history.

And whilst the timbers were first displayed at the New York Aquarium before being transferred to MCNY in the 1940s, advances in scientific analysis a century later have prompted a renewed investigation into their true identity. Now, researchers led by Professor Martijn Manders – the Program Leader of the International Program for Maritime Heritage – and Dr Marta Domínguez Delmás – Senior Researcher and Dendrochronologist  – both from RCE are travelling to New York, where they will study the timbers using tree-dating technology.

The study will identify the wood species and use dendrochronology to determine when and where the trees were felled. This data will help confirm, or definitively rule out, a connection to Block’s ship.

“These ship timbers connect us directly to New York’s earliest years as a crossroads of cultures, commerce and exploration,” said Stephanie Hill Wilchfort, Ronay Menschel Director and President of MCNY. “We are honoured to collaborate with our colleagues at the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands to reexamine this material evidence and help uncover new insights into the city’s 17th‑century past.”

The researchers will also examine how the timbers were shaped and used in the vessel, and will compare them with known Dutch shipbuilding traditions of the early 1600s.

According to Professor Manders, the project offers a rare opportunity to revisit a pivotal moment in Dutch–American history. “Working on the shipwreck remains from 1916 is very exciting, and hopefully our research will shine some more light on the wood provenance, dating and construction of the ship parts,” he said. “Will it be the Tyger? Who knows? We will do our best to unravel the mystery!”

Whilst Dr Delmás said the team will use an exclusion-based approach to test the attribution. “Tree rings in the shipwreck timbers can reveal the date and provenance of the wood, and while they cannot tell us explicitly whether this is the Tyger, they can certainly reveal if it is not,” she said. Adding that if the wood species, date and provenance all line up, archaeologists can confirm the origins with categorical proof “Piecing all the puzzle together, we will be able to reach an informed conclusion.”