Mystery of the shipwreck that was uncovered under 9/11 ruins

The devastating 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center left the world in an inconsolable state of shock.

For years, people grieved, politicians and security specialists focused in on terrorism, and military efforts were ramped up to the extreme.

That's probably why it wasn't until years later that something very curious was discovered beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center.

ABC

In 2010, when construction workers were rebuilding the site, they stumbled upon an old wooden ship.

The obvious question was, how on earth did a centuries-old ship wind up 22 feet beneath the Twin Towers?

Archaeologists immediately got investigating.

After four years of digging, analysing, and studying, they were able to determine that the ship had been built in the 1770s - around the same era as the Declaration of Independence.

Researchers also determined that the type of oak used to build the ship would have come from Philadelphia.

Strangest of all was that the rings on the wooden hull matched other samples of wood rings that had been used to build Independence Hall, where both the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution were signed.

The mysterious ship was later identified as a Hudson River sloop, which would have been designed by the Dutch to carry cargo and passengers over the Hudson river's rocky floor.

LMDC/Columbia University

So, how on earth did it end up there?

Well, it's believed that, after 20 to 30 years of service, the ship was sailed to the lower Manhattan area where it sunk.

Historians still aren't sure whether the ship sank accidentally, or was purposefully submerged.

In the decades that followed, the ship's remains were covered with rubbish, debris, and other materials like rock and soil that were used to expand the area of Manhattan.

Oysters were also found on the hull of the ship, suggesting it was submerged for quite some time before it was buried with trash and landfill to form the land that the Twin Towers would eventually be built on.

Speaking to CNN about the discovery back in 2014, archaeologist Molly McDonald, who was among those who first discovered the ship, said: "It’s such an intense site already based on its recent history, so to be in the midst of this urban, modern, very fraught location, and then to be sitting on what was a river bottom, with clams and fish, and the smell of low tide, was really an amazing juxtaposition."

REUTERS / Alamy Stock Photo

Today, the remains of the ship are being conserved and exhibited in Albany at the New York State Museum, so you can marvel at the bizarre discovery for yourself.