{"id":12446,"date":"2024-09-25T22:29:05","date_gmt":"2024-09-25T22:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/ancient-orkney-shipwreck-put-in-water-tank-for-preservation\/"},"modified":"2024-09-25T22:29:05","modified_gmt":"2024-09-25T22:29:05","slug":"ancient-orkney-shipwreck-put-in-water-tank-for-preservation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/ancient-orkney-shipwreck-put-in-water-tank-for-preservation\/","title":{"rendered":"Ancient Orkney shipwreck put in water tank for preservation"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"OrkneyOrkney Islands Council<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Marine archaeologist Ben Saunders helps place the wood in the tank for study<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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A shipwreck found washed ashore on a beach on Orkney has been put in a water tank for preservation and study.<\/p>\n

The timbers were discovered on the island of Sanday in February<\/a> after they were released from the seabed during a storm.<\/p>\n

Researchers believe the wreck could be from the 17th Century and possibly of Dutch origin. <\/p>\n

Marine archaeologist Ben Saunders, who has been working on the wreck, described it as a “significant” find.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“You don\u2019t see timber shipwrecks ashore and easily recoverable in this sort of size very often,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ve only worked on three or four and that\u2019s across the UK and Europe in the last ten years. <\/p>\n

“They\u2019re more commonly found subsea – when they tend to stay there because it\u2019s expensive to recover them.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"PAPA<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The shipwreck was found on a beach on Sanday in February<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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For the past six months the Sanday Heritage Group has maintained the wreck by covering the wood in old bed sheets and watering them weekly.<\/p>\n

This prevented the timbers from decay, because as soon as they are removed from the sea they start to dry out and break down.<\/p>\n

Mr Saunders said this has been key to the wreck’s survival.<\/p>\n

“They\u2019re still in pretty good condition, not far off the condition they were found in,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The wreck was wrapped in damp sheets for the last six months<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The timbers are now being kept in the 8m stainless steel tank at the island\u2019s heritage centre.<\/p>\n

The tank was built with the help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, which awarded \u00a380,000 to Orkney Islands Council to help preserve the wreck.<\/p>\n

The water will prevent deterioration for two to three years while research is carried out into the ship\u2019s identity and significance.<\/p>\n

Mr Saunders, who works for Wessex Archaeology, said it will allow them to understand more about historic shipbuilding techniques.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Twenty samples have been taken from the ship’s frame to give archaeologists the best chance to establish the construction date.<\/p>\n

They will use dendrochronology, also known as tree ring dating, where the rings in the wood are counted to establish the age of a tree.<\/p>\n

The team will also try to identify the name of the ship from historic records from Sanday and the Orkney islands.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Clive<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Clive Struver of Sanday Development Trust on the beach where the wreck was found<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Several potential merchant marks have been found on some of the timbers. <\/p>\n

Mr Saunders said these could be examples of international timber trade.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cOrkney and Shetland had a really important position on a lot of international trading routes during the medieval period. <\/p>\n

\u201cSanday has been for centuries a major source of shipwrecks and this could be from any period around that time.”<\/p>\n

The island heritage centre hopes more details of the shipwreck will be revealed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Clive Struver, chair of the Sanday Development Trust, said the shipwreck could be a archaeological attraction for the island and more research was “vital”.<\/p>\n

He added: “Something like this is such a rare find that it\u2019s incredibly important we make the most of it and we do everything to preserve it. <\/p>\n

“Not only for the local history but the British maritime heritage, it could be very significant.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"OrkneyOrkney Islands Council<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The timbers are moved into place in the 8m stainless steel tank<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Ellen Pesci, social history curator at Orkney Museum, said the find was “quite amazing”.<\/p>\n

“Right now it\u2019s a little bit abstract because we\u2019ve had to deconstruct it to put it in to the tank, so it looks like pieces of wood”, she said.<\/p>\n

But she said it was important for the residents of Sanday to retain ownership of the shipwreck.<\/p>\n

Mrs Pesci hopes they will eventually be in a position to seek funding to put the shipwreck on display.<\/p>\n

“It also has to be something that works in particular for the community,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s a slow process – you have to go through those stages before having it in a glass tank, like the Mary Rose of Sanday.”<\/p>\n

About 200 shipwrecks have been catalogued around the island, dating back to 1596.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Orkney Islands Council Marine archaeologist Ben Saunders helps place the wood in the tank for study A shipwreck found washed ashore on a beach on Orkney has been put in a water tank for preservation and study. The timbers were discovered on the island of Sanday in February after they were released from the seabed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[4594,5635,5636,526,3375,1967,725],"class_list":["post-12446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scotland","tag-ancient","tag-orkney","tag-preservation","tag-put","tag-shipwreck","tag-tank","tag-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12448,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12446\/revisions\/12448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}