Toothpicks and sushi-mats

This time around it was something completely different when we entered the Fat Margaret premises and approached the Tallinn cog, the subject of our work for the past two years. Can’t really say how many times we’ve been here, but yes, it’s been almost two years since we got involved with this beauty of a medieval shipwreck, a rare example of a cog-ship, the famed ship-type used by the Hanseatic league back in the heyday of this very powerful entity so important in Baltic trade. Conservation of this shipwreck, found in 2015 amidst building construction works in Tallinn’s Kadriorg park, that’s been our task, and that’s why we came here now on this beautiful late August Thursday.

So, what’d we do and experience this time? Well, to start with, the construction works around the wreck have advanced, the museum starts to take shape, there’s a roof now covering the wreck and all that, and one can very easily see that it’s gonna be one hell of a museum. But nothing’s finished just yet. The cog remains wrapped in plastic, as was the case in our last posting, but what was different now was the light. Especially inside the plastic tent, where we entered though a zipper-hole, it was dark. Nothing like the luminous lightness recorded in the previous posts, but darkness due to the unfinished ceiling and dirty plastic over our heads. For the first time we needed to bring in spotlights to illuminate our work, which brought forth nicely differently-atmosphered photos.

And what did they document, these photos we’re attaching here? Of course, nice scenes of fruitful work, enriched by deep appreciation of the object at hand, the medieval structure, on which we are extremely lucky to work on. The main focus this time was on the wall, or the only structure hereabouts to be called a wall, even vaguely. This is the bit we worked on already in the previous post, the kind of a deck structure, or remains of such, towards the fore of the ship. It consists of a horizontal beam and planks attached to it, the planks being not made of oak as the major parts of the ship, but of coniferous wood, which means that these bits have reacted differently to the decomposing processes and drying phases, resulting in a bit more warped and cracked appearance compared to the main parts of the ship.

Many of these planks now needed to be reattached to their original position, which is what we set to do. We knew where they belonged and had a plan how to attach them, namely by drilling holes and using wooden pegs to stick pieces together. The Viking ships in Roskilde, Denmark, have been put together in a similar way, which gave a good feeling, as we’re following a tradition here, not only because we’re utilizing traditional methods used initially when such ships were constructed, but also because this is the way shipwreck-finds have been conserved previously.

Anyway, holes were drilled and different sizes of woodpegs, ranging from toothpicks and sticks dismantled from sushi-mats to thicker ones, were used to attack planks in their places. This was all good, and as a result, the wall rose as the day advanced. At the end of the day, there was the wall.

Not a bad result of a day. Not much more could be done, because of the construction works around and the plastic covering the wreck, but no matter, there’s still time, and actually there’s not much to be done anymore. Soon the wreck will be ready for exhibition.

Or no, there’s plenty of things to do, cleaning and so on, but no panic here, the wreck has preserved well and will be displayed nicely thanks to our conservation decisions, smart and sustainable ones at that, as this case will be the world record of turning a shipwreck find to a museum exhibit, we think. Found in 2015 in a wet state, exhibited beautifully in late 2019 – wow!