REUTERS/Tom LittleLUND, Sweden, March 3 (Reuters) - Archaeologists say they have uncovered a "unique" cache of well-preserved spices, from strands of saffron to peppercorns and ginger, on the wreck of a royal ship that sunk off Sweden's Baltic coast more than 500 years ago. Rediscovered by sports divers in the 1960s, sporadic excavations of the ship have taken place in recent years. Now an excavation led by Brendan Foley, an archaeological scientist at Lund University, has found the spices buried in the silt of the boat. "The Baltic is strange - it's low oxygen, low temperature, low salinity, so many organic things are well preserved in the Baltic where they wouldn't be well preserved elsewhere in the world ocean system," said Foley. Lund University researcher Mikael Larsson, who has been studying the finds, said: "This is the only archaeological context where we've found saffron.

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