Portsmouth and Caen, May 23

Tim and I were back at the Portsmouth Harbor and Shipyard, this time to tour the Mary Rose, a ship built for Henry the VIII in 1512.  It sank in front of him in 1547 in the harbor during an inconsequential naval skirmish with the French.  The leading theory is that when it turned too suddenly, water sloshed in through open gunports, which caused the weight to shift so that more water poured in, which caused it to tip over.  It sanked into the mud of the harbor and stayed there for more than four hundred years. 

It was discovered by a team of amateur divers, who had a general idea where to look from archival research.  When they found the first cannon with Henry’s royal seal on it, they recruited an archaeologist to make sure they were doing it right; she got tired of hearing about all the exciting finds from divers returning to the surface so she got her scuba certification too.  When the significance of the discovery became clear they got a lot of government and foundation money to finish the job but it still took a decade to raise 19,000 cups, cutlery, chests, weapons, tools, armor, etc. to the surface.  Then they raised the half of the ship that was left, preserved because it was buried in silt.  They managed to pull it up all in one piece somehow.  Then it took decades more to preserve the timbers, and design and build the museum, which finally opened in 2013.

As a result the museum is a lot more sophisticated and higher tech than the HMS Victory exhibit we saw yesterday.   You are greeted by a holographic lifesize Henry the VIII, who gives you the background.

Then it’s into the display area itself, with a gigantic windows through which to see the ship.

Some excellent descriptions of the  archaeological sleuthing.

And finally, a solution to the longbow mystery that arose at the Tower of London. One of the docents explained that prior to the discovery of the MR there were only three historical (i.e. not recreated) longbows in the UK.  They uncovered 154 more in the wreckage, which allowed longbow scholars (of whom there are apparently a surprising number) to get a much better idea of how the weapons worked. 

At 3 we took the ferry from Portsmouth to Caen for the next phase of my travels.  Posting may be lighter because I will be socializing more (and because I’m not sure that anyone’s reading).