Dover Bronze Age Boat Replica Built, Not Floating

[Dear readers: I'm sorry about posting so rarely during the past few months. Life's busy, as I'm sure you understand. Here's a quick one just to remind you that I'm here, and a promise to do a more substantial post as soon as I can. Thanks for your continued interest and your patience.]

I've written before about the Dover Bronze Age Boat. This is my favorite ancient boat, mainly because I was among the first journalists on the scene, and it is the only marine archaeological excavation that I have experienced up close (an experience which filled me with awe). The replica of the boat that has been under construction (which I reported here as being a full-size reproduction, but which was, in fact, built at half-size) is now essentially complete, except that it doesn't float.


As shown in the Kickstarter video, the replica's sponsors now plan to disassemble, caulk, and reassemble the boat in water-tight condition, and then to campaign it along England's south coast. The video shows parts of the boat in fine detail, including some provocative internal X-frames. I'd like to know the evidence or the reasoning behind this unusual feature. Also of interest, but unfortunately not shown, is the archaeologists' interpretation of the unusual yoke-shaped feature on the upper side of the bottom's bow end, and how it fit together with other planks in closing in the bow.

I've also written previously about the replica Ferriby Boats. Also from Britain's Bronze Age, the Ferriby boats exhibit a similar technological approach but different engineering solutions to the problems of edge-joining and waterproofing the joints between heavy hewn planks. It would be interesting to test Ferriby and a full-size Dover replica side by side and compare their capabilities.

"New" Bronze Age Dugouts Uncovered

According to this article on BBC News, an important Bronze Age archaeological site is being excavated at a  quarry in Whittlesey, England. The village, located along the old course of the River Nene, burned about 800 B.C., and was subsequently buried by 3 meters of peat and silt, which preserved a great many artifacts, including six (count 'em!) oak dugout canoes, along with other items such as ropes, buckets, swords, spoons, and a pot of nettle stew. (We don't wonder why that was left uneaten.) 


There's the usual nonsense about the artifacts being "perfectly preserved," when it's clear from the photos that the canoes, at least, did of course suffer deterioration: but that's not to imply that they were not sufficiently well preserved to be of potentially great archaeological value Unfortunately, the article includes no details about the canoes, but if you learn anything elsewhere, please leave a comment.


Thanks again to Marian for this tip.

Preserving a Bronze Age Logboat Proves Difficult

See here for an article on Old Salt Blog about continuing efforts to preserve the Hasholme Boat, a big Bronze Age logboat (i.e., dugout) found decades ago on the Humber River in England.