Legendary lost city swallowed by the North Sea is mapped at last

Archaeologists have mapped out a legendary lost city - which supposedly sank beneath the North Sea due to the sins of its inhabitants.

The lost city of Rungholt disappeared beneath the waves in a storm tide and legend says its bells can still be heard there.

One local legend suggests that a priest asked by drunken local young men to give the last rites to a pig prayed for God to punish Rungholt, shortly before the storm tide arrived.

But the city - sometimes described as another ‘Atlantis’ - is very real and located beneath Germany’s Wadden Sea.

The medieval trading centre of Rungholt, drowned in a storm surge in 1362 and researchers recently found several miles of mounds and a large church at a location beneath the North Sea.

Researchers from Kiel University have now succeeded in locating the site of the Rungholt church and have mapped out the whole city.

Dennis Wilken, a geophysicist at Kiel University said: "Settlement remains hidden under the mudflats are first localized and mapped over a wide area using various geophysical methods such as magnetic gradiometry, electromagnetic induction, and seismic."

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Dr Hanna Hadler from the Institute of Geography at Mainz University added: "Based on this prospection, we selectively take sediment cores that not only allow us to make statements about spatial and temporal relationships of settlement structures, but also about landscape development."

In May 2023, a previously unknown mile-long chain of medieval terps, which are artificial settlement mounds, was recorded by geophysical prospecting near Hallig Südfall.

One of these terps shows structures that can be interpreted as the foundations of a church 120 feet to 45 feet in size.

First corings and excavations have provided initial insights into the structure and foundations of the sacred building.

So far, the finds in the area investigated, which covers more than four square miles include 54 terps, systematic drainage systems, a sea dike with a tidal gate harbour as well as two sites of smaller churches – and now a large main church.

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