Maritime Archaeology Updates

Diving Deeper with the Maritime Archaeology Trust

Tag: history

#MuseumWeek2017: Theme of the day, TRAVEL!

Museum Week is an international online event that is running from 19th to 25th June 2017. Organised in collaboration with UNESCO, the Museum Week is a chance for heritage institutions across the world to share and talk about our passion for heritage with the public through social media. This year we are celebrating equality by dedicating the Museum Week to all women in the world.

The Maritime Archaeology Trust will be sharing with you our take on Museum Week. In collaboration with the Shipwreck Centre and Maritime Museum on the Isle of Wight we will be looking through their collections and bring you artefacts and histories that are linked in with the theme of the day.

Saturday’s theme for the week is TRAVEL!

One rupee from 1917. Source: https://www.marudhararts.com/e-shop/pid-no-6566/bank-note-of-india/british-india-notes/k-g-v-/british-india-one-rupee-note-of-king-george-v-of-1917-.html

Artefacts recovered from shipwrecks have a natural connection with travel. Either they have been on board the ship and travelled to the same destinations or they originate from the destinations visited by the ship. The Shipwreck Centre’s collection has numerous items that have a connection to maritime travel. Some are extremely fascinating to the viewer, such as the “Feejee mermaid” that was discussed in a previous blog post.

Indian rupees on display at the Shipwreck Centre from the SS Camberwell. Credits: Shipwreck Centre and Maritime Museum

On the wreck of the SS Camberwell, divers found Indian rupee banknotes which were still recognisable. Remarkably these had survived for 70 years before they were brought back to the surface. The SS Camberwell sunk on the 18th May 1917 when it struck a mine and sunk 6 miles SE of Dunnose Head on the Isle of Wight. Sadly seven people perished with the sinking of the ship, all with Indian heritage.

India was officially recognised as a British colony in 1858 when the Crown took control of India from the East Indian Trading Company. Lascars, or Indian sailors had already been employed by the EITC as sailors in the 17th century. With the Royal Navy’s demand for sailors during wars the number of Indian sailors quickly rose. By 1917 the number of Indian sailors on British registered vessels were up to over 51 000.

The rupees found on the SS Camberwell tell the journey of the people connected with the ship. Like the mermaid and the HMS Victory’s logbook mentioned earlier this week, the bank notes have travelled far before ending up on display at the Shipwreck Centre on the Isle of Wight. Just like the people on board the SS Camberwell before it sank in 1917.

#MuseumWeek2017: Theme of the day, BOOKS!

Museum Week is an international online event that is running from 19th to 25th June 2017. Organised in collaboration with UNESCO, the Museum Week is a chance for heritage institutions across the world to share and talk about our passion for heritage with the public through social media. This year we are celebrating equality by dedicating the Museum Week to all women in the world.

The Maritime Archaeology Trust will be sharing with you our take on Museum Week. In collaboration with the Shipwreck Centre and Maritime Museum on the Isle of Wight we will be looking through their collections and bring you artefacts and histories that are linked in with the theme of the day.

The Friday theme during Museum Week is BOOKS!

Logbook from the whaling ship Diana from hull, which accounts for a very tragic story. Source: http://www.mylearning.org/ships-log-of-the-diana/p-4300/

Or in our case, more accurately logbooks! A logbook or ship’s log is a record of important events that happened during the ship’s journey. This also includes management, operation and navigation of the ship.

The logbook was a key part of navigating a ship. Navigation is largely based on defining the latitude and longitude of the ship’s location. The longitude is the more difficult one to determine, as it requires the sailor to know the local time to determine what time zone they were travelling through, and as such determine their location by combining the ship’s latitude position. Medieval sailors were unable to determine the latitude-longitude completely accurately, due to the technology that was available to them at the time. As such the sailors heavily relied on the dead reckoning system. The dead reckoning principle works the following way. The sailor would start by taking a known or assumed position of the ship. Then the heading and the speed of the ship from this location would be measured, as well as the speed of the ocean currents, the leeward (downwind) drift, and how long the ship spent at each heading. Based on this information, the navigator could determine the course of the ship and how far the ship had travelled. This was noted down in the logbook, which was then used to as a reference to check the accuracy of the predicted dead reckoning.

A ship’s logbook holds a huge wealth of material for maritime archaeologists. Finding a ship’s logbook is like finding a gold mine. We can retrace the journey of the ship from the logbook and compare that to any remains we may have found. This is valuable when trying to determine the identity of a wreck for example. It also gives us a great insight into what life on board was like. For a great example is an extract from the logbook of the Halsewell.  The Halsewell was a merchant ship based in the East India Company. There is a record in their logbook from 19th October 1781, where Lord Nelson (then Captain) recruits experienced sailors for the Navy, leaving the ship with only “foreigners and servants”.

Captain Nelson recruiting experienced sailors from the Haslewell. Source: http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item105531.html

The Shipwreck Centre also holds logbooks in their collection. An example can be seen here of the logbook from the HMS Victory which subsequently became the logbook of the HMS Duke of Wellington, the ship that replaced the HMS Victory as the Port Admiral flagship at Portsmouth between 1869 and 1891 (McKay 1987:9). Next time you visit the Shipwreck Centre and Maritime Museum on the Isle of Wight, try to spot the logbook which is on display next to old toothpaste and wood from the Mary Rose!

Cadet logbook of the HMS Victory on display in the Shipwreck Centre. Source: Shipwreck Centre and Maritime Museum

#MuseumWeek2017: Theme of the day, MUSIC!

Museum Week is an international online event that is running from 19th to 25th June 2017. Organised in collaboration with UNESCO, the Museum Week is a chance for heritage institions across the world to share and talk about our passion for heritage with the public through social media. This year we are celebrating equality by dedicating the Museum Week to all women in the world.

The Maritime Archaeology Trust will be sharing with you our take on Museum Week. In collaboration with the Shipwreck Centre and Maritime Museum on the Isle of Wight we will be looking through their collections and bring you artefacts and histories that are linked in with the theme of the day.

Wednesday’s Museum Week theme is MUSIC!

Musical instruments found during the excavation of the Mary Rose. Images credits: Mary Rose Museum [Source: http://www.maryrose.org/discover-our-collection/her-crew/life-on-board/]

Music has always been an important aspect in seafaring. Musical instruments were used by the crew for entertainment, but also for keeping pace when rowing and calling for action. When excavating the Mary Rose archaeologist discovered a number of musical instruments in the crew belongings on the orlop deck. These included tabor pipes, a tabor/drum and the earliest example of a shawm which is an early form of oboe. Famously during the sinking of the Titanic, records state that the band was playing on deck while the ship was sinking to help keep the passengers calm.

Wallace Hartley’s violin. He was one of the band members on the Titanic. Image credit: BNPS.co.uk [Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2293232/Water-stained-violin-proven-played-brave-bandmaster-Titanic-sank.html]

Although it is not a musical instrument as such, the Bosun’s whistle has a long history in the seafaring world. For example, it is thought that the Roman’s used a type of whistle to keep the rowers in pace on their war ships. The whistle is commonly used in the Navy. It is used to attract the attention of the crew before handing out orders. Different calls have different meanings and sometimes just the whistle call itself is enough to deliver the message, such as the “Carry On” command.

Examples of the Bosun’s Whistle can be found at the Shipwreck Centre. The whistles are located in the bottom right hand corner of the picture. Image credits: The Shipwreck Centre and Maritime Museum [Source: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNGxx3z33Z8ji16TBFJCoqpIbaSu3dwQsMrGIx99WACfB8hJnVfJ8a9kHFcHsvSSQ?key=YUhSYzBQdFZIWGM3TFNUclJlXzNCSDhCUU0yZ09n]

Of course, the use of musical instruments was not always necessary in order to make music. Sea shantys were commonly sung by the crew while working on board the ship. It helped keep the crew’s morale up while completing tedious tasks.

#MuseumWeek2017: Theme of the day, SPORTS!

Museum Week is an international online event that is running from 19th to 25th June 2017. Organised in collaboration with UNESCO, the Museum Week is a chance for heritage institions across the world to share and talk about our passion for heritage with the public through social media. This year we are celebrating equality by dedicating the Museum Week to all women in the world.

The Maritime Archaeology Trust will be sharing with you our take on Museum Week. In collaboration with the Shipwreck Centre and Maritime Museum on the Isle of Wight we will be looking through their collections and bring you artefacts and histories that are linked in with the theme of the day

The Tuesday theme for the week is SPORTS!

Antique diving suits at the Shipwreck Centre and Maritime Museum on the Isle of Wight. Photo Credit: The Shipwreck Centre

Did you know that at the Shipwreck Centre we hold a collection of antique diving gear? Augustus Siebe, who is a German born inventor, is credited as the first person to design the closed diving suit, i.e. full suit and helmet in one. The design came about after he was contacted by the Deane brothers who wanted Siebe to come up with a new helmet design to replace their own. The Deane brothers are well-known in maritime history. They were the first people to discover the wreck of the Mary Rose among other things.

Martin Woodward wearing an antique diving suit in the 70s. Photo credit: The Shipwreck Centre

The first design of the Siebe diving suit came about in 1839. Still a century after its creation – Siebe’s diving suit was still used all over the world. Martin Woodward, the founder of the Shipwreck Centre and Maritime Museum on the Isle of Wight, proved that the antique diving suit design can still be used when he tried it out in the 70s.

Martin Woodward recently gearing up in an antique diving suit. Photo Credit: The Shipwreck Centre

Diving Week 13th to 16th June 2017

Diver being winched onto the boat after completing photogrammetry survey

The Maritime Archaeology Trust’s first proper fieldwork diving week took place in June. We were joined by researchers from the ForSEADiscovery  project who specialise in analysing wood for maritime archaeological research.

Setting off from Lymington in the New Forest aboard the Wight Spirit we headed off towards the Isle of Wight. The weather was delightfully sunny and we were hoping for great visibility below the surface!

The first of our chosen sites was the SS South Western. She was sunk by a torpedo south of the Isle of Wight on 16th March 1917, with only 6 survivors out of a crew of 32. Many of the crew members had links to Southampton and consequently the SS South Western becomes a prominent part of the local history. The ship is part of our current Forgotten Wrecks of WWI project which is looking at ships that were lost during WWI, of 1914 to 1918, on the south coast of England. More on the project can be found here .

The aims and objectives for this site was to identify some key features on the ship. This included a detail recording of the cargo and boilers, and also locating the ship’s gun. The dive team managed to achieve a good amount of data for photogrammetry . This data will be compiled into a detailed 3D model for us to study in the comfort our dry (but very hot!) office. For an example of what a photogrammetry model looks like, please see the model of the HMD John Mitchell here.

Brandon and Garry looking at data from the wreck sites

The second wrecksite we wanted to look at this week was the SS Hazelwoood. The ship hit a mine on the 19th October 1917, with the loss of all 32 crew members.  The location of the Hazelwood is still to be positively identified. However, our dive boat skipper and historian, Dave Wendes, believes that the wreck identified as the Saxmundham is in fact the SS Hazelwood. The wreck site is located at a depth of 32 meters. Previous dives on the site done in 2015 were plagued by poor visibility and as such we weren’t previously able to determine the identity of the wreck. This time the conditions were slightly better and we were able to conduct a photogrammetry survey. The photos taken of the site will be compiled into a 3D model which will hopefully help us determine the identity of the wreck once and for all.

The final site we looked at during this week was the submerged Mesolithic landscape at Bouldnor Cliff. The site dates back about 8000 years and has in-situ archaeological remains which are connected with the submerged landscape. The Mesolithic peat deposits lie at a depth of 12 meters, while two additional peat layers above broadly date to the Neolithic and Bronze Age. The aims and objectives of this survey was to check the erosion rate against the previously placed datum points across the site. We also took several sediment samples for palaeo-environmental analysis. Previous samples have concluded that e.g. wheat arrived in Britain 2000 years before we have evidence of humans farming it. Hopefully these new samples will add further knowledge into the nature of the landscape during the Mesolithic.

During the diving week we also had the pleasure of the company from a reporter, Rikke, who is doing coverage for BBC 3. Stay tuned for more updates during the summer!

Rikke querying Nigel and Garry about the finds

 

Menhir de la Tremblais

Near the village of Saint-Samson-sur-Rance, in Brittany, France, we find this interesting Neolithic piece of stone.

Pierre Longue menhir of Thiemblaye

The menhir stands alone at 6 meters in length, leaning at just over  45 degrees. It is a large block of granite and quartz, with a relatively polished, flat look.

Most of the time that is all it seems to be. However, when the sun hits it just right, beautiful markings and carvings appear. Carvings of crosses, leaves, axes, waves and various animals.

 

There are several legends surrounding this monument. One legend says it is one of three stones closing the entrance to hell. This belief gave it the name “Bonde de l’Enfer,” loosely meaning “Leap From Hell.”

Another legend says that a young girl who wants to get married should climb on top of the menhir and slide down in her “birth pants.” Subsequently, she will be wed within a year.

A final legend tells a story of Samson of Dol who faced the temptations of the Devil nearby, and when the Devil failed, it whipped the stone, creating some of the marks we can see today.

 

 

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Across the Seas: ‘The Idol’, Peña Tú Asturias

Previously we have discussed some 3D-images of  French megaliths. The following 3D image is of a Neolithic stone shelter in Spain.

Located in the beautiful Sierra Plana de la Borbolla, at Llanes in Asturias, Northern Spain, ‘The Idol’ is a neolithic rock shelter which has preserved wonderful examples of prehistoric art.

The rock has been known by local inhabitants for a long time, but it was not until 1914 the first archaeological  investigations took place. ‘The Idol’ can be interpreted as a human form, featuring eyes, nose and feet wrapped in a cloth or robe. It might have represented a tribal elder or warrior, indicated by the adjacent dagger motif, thus making it likely that is was a funerary monument.

The images show crosses, demonstrating the site’s later Christianisation. In addition, we can find a faint animal motif and several red forms throughout.

It is likely that ‘The Idol’ is part of a series of sites dispersed across the region that are almost certainly connected with a wider common culture, stretching from Ireland to Scandinavia to Tunisia, in the Neolithic.

The site was surveyed by drone and Land Rover Defender.

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