An 18th-century timber wharf in Copenhagen Harbour

Abstract

An archaeological investigation prior to the building of Copenhagen's new Opera House examined an impressive wooden wharf built in the 1780s around Ankerøen, the island on which the Danish navy stored its anchor stocks. When considered with documentary evidence, the excavated structure can be shown to employ a distinctive method of construction, comparable to that used in the so-called 'Hamburg' type of wharf, with a heavy box-like frame fronted with slanting storm posts. It was abandoned by the mid-19th century, when the shape of ships' hulls changed.