Going Proustian - Cogge Sive Navis Magna conference part 1

Bricks and mortar things, stones too. What are they here for, in our ship, the medieval one we're conserving in Tallinn? What's this whitish thing made of mortar? 'That's a building fragment. They took everything they could. And they're very important to you, especially those plain bricks probably used for ship's hearth, because they might tell you the origin of this ship. They always used local bricks.' So said Wouter Waldus, the Dutch specialist of medieval ships, when we were standing next the Lootsi ship one cold afternoon. Around us were dozens of others, all specialists in various fields related to shipwreck studies. Archaeologist, conservators, historians, dendrochronologists…

This was the 'Cogge Sive Navis Magna' -conference organized by the Estonian Maritime Museum in Tallinn and online. It brought together people from around Europe who could help in understanding this ship better, preserve her and make everything available and open for the public. We were happy and proud to play our part in organizing the event, us, the conservators, whose responsibility it is to plan and manage the preservation of the material whole that is the Lootsi Cog.

Hele Kiimann, the Head of Research opening the conference. Photo: Eero Ehanti

It’s good to have others’ expertise, opinions and eyes on this. We've certainly looked at this ship. For instance the planks she’s made of. And not just the ones constituting this ship, but the ones in the other ship as well, the Peeter Cog, whose conservation was our responsibility as well a few years back. The planks and beams in these ships are very impressive because of the carpentry skill evident in them. How did they do it, those shipbuilders from 700 years ago, cut the timber and bent them like that, in the curvy ageless shape of a ship? And the sheer size of them, those oaks must've been huge. How old were they when cut down? Hundreds of years surely. The timeline of the Lootsi ship is enormous.

And the cracks on the planks, those we've been looking at particularly closely, worryingly a bit. A conservator's gaze. A gaze of appreciation and care but also of worry. What's happening there, is it cracking? Bending? Is it stable? Should we do something, add something, is it needed? Is it possible?

Conservator's loving gaze, conservator's caring questions.

But never ever did we look at them like we do now, after the conference, those planks and cracks in them. The gaze is never the same after listening to Mike Belasus' presentation and talking to him afterwards. Those planks and beams speak. They do, if you know what to look for and ask.

They have a story to tell about the trees they were cut from, and the forest they grew in. The climate in which the oaks grew. And about the society around, back then, in medieval Europe, during the Hanseatic realm, whose one nodule was right here in Tallinn, Reval of the time.

Mike has worked extensively on the Bremen Cog, which is a ship excavated in a river in Germany back in the 1960s and preserved then in a decades-long conservation project. Now she's on display in Bremerhaven, this wreck of such a great importance, as a medieval ship and as a conservation and research project. A predecessor in many ways, also in displaying such finds in a museum.

Mike Belasus speaking at the Cogge Sive Navis Magna Conference. Photo. Eero Ehanti

Mike has looked at the details of the Bremen Cog, very carefully. The cracks and holes in the wood, those he can read. He showed pictures of planks and interpretation drawings of the trees they were cut from. The way the planks behave now, after more than 700 years of submersion and burial and decades of conservation and display, still reflect the way the tree once lived. How it grew within the changing seasons, how it branched, how it twisted and suffered, got traumatized. How its lower branches died out while the upper ones reached upwards and wider in the forest to reach the rays of sun, stings of life. Those kinds of things can be reflected in the planks sawn of them, and those kinds of things affect the quality of the timber. They make a difference in how good a ship turns out to be.

One must think of the people in those forests as well. The lumberjacks. But others too. Pig herders maybe, who came under big oaks to fatten their pigs with acorns, as Mike very memorable presented. There was a living and thriving society around the forest. People used it, the goods the forest produced.

No, it didn't produce anything, it just lived, the forest, it's cyclic eternal life. Until humans saw it as a resource and started using the goods at hand, to keep warm, to cook, to farm, to build things.

That's humanity and that's civilization. Too bad for the forest. But it did produce something like the Bremen Cog, and the Lootsi Cog, and all the others presented in the conference. The ones found in the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany.. Everywhere in the Hanseatic realm.

It’s not only ships that evolved, but various building techniques. Understanding and skill to turn trees to structures, which can take the form of a ship. Or a building. A water pipe? Yes, even there, similar structural details than in our ships.

It’s not only wood but metals as well. Something to bind planks and beams together. Iron nails, sintels and fixtures, those things we're now struggling to preserve. Then something to make those structures watertight. Caulking. Animal hair and moss to seal seams. Tar to fix it.

That’s the kinds of details we were looking at with the group that cold day in the tent. And it makes sense, this ship and its structure, to these specialists and to us now.

But it's not just practical structures that were sawn and carved of those trees cut down around the times of our ships. It was also the things that were shipped in those ships, like for instance altarpieces. Wooden sculptures as well. Saints. Art, in today's thinking. But practical objects of faith at the time surely, instruments to establish connection to God.

In another keynote of the conference, Aoife Daly, the dendrochronologists who was referred to with much respect at several times during the conference because she's dated most of the ships we were talking about, showed impressively how the science of dendrochronology has evolved and how it is now very accurate. There's a timelime, where these ships find their places, next to important historical events.

She explained the method and the contexts, where these the ships belong to in the historical continuum. But most touching was perhaps the altarpiece Aoife included in her presentation. These too were made of this material. These too very shipped in these vessels. These too are dendro-dated now.

Aoife Daly presenting at the conference. Photo: Eero Ehanti

It's like the altarpiece of the Kalanti church in Finland, one of the masterpieces of the National Museum of Finland. Early 1400s, that one. By Meister Francke, from Hamburg. Surely this was shipped as well, and many of the polychrome saints now in the National Museum in Helsinki. How many saints sailed on these cog ships? To be used to speak to God, in distant parts of Europe, to spread the word of God, the Catholic view of it?

Both Mike's and Aoife's presentations and discussions opened ours eyes, Wouter’s too. They painted medieval society in front of us in vivid color. Pig herders and believers. Stonemasons who had once cast that mortar piece to adorn some building. Or a fountain perhaps?

These things can have something of a Proustian effect in them if looked at and studied closely. A communal, universally humanistic Madeleine cake -momentum. A whole society slowly appears from the mists of history out of these tiny details and fragments. The picture gets sharper and more vivid within every find, through every discussion with somebody who knows, who has an expertise relevant to this ship. Or just a feeling, that only is enough.

Then there were the Estonians. Alar Läänelaid, who took it from Aoife’s presentation and, after showing impressive evidence, presented us with THE date. The date of felling the trees this ship was made of. 1374. Also the whereabouts, the location where the oaks grew. It's in today's Lithuania, Klaipeda area. So there we have it, thanks to science and these people.

And Juhan Kreem, who’s been carrying out excavations of another kind, in the archives, where he’s been able to dig up names of people, who worked on ships and port in Tallinn back then. Even skippers of ships! This is mindblowing. Can he actually come up with names of the very people who just might have sailed on this ship?

Juhan Kreem at the conference. Photo: Eero Ehanti

The Proustian picture being painted before us gets more color, adjusts slowly.

But how about the planks in our ship, are they good or not?

Yes, they're good, as compared to the timber used for the Bremen cog, which is full of cracks and holes and patches. The Bremen cog wasn’t made of good wood, say Mike, Aoife and others, who have researched her for decades. She probably didn’t even sail much. But this one did, the Lootsi ship. A seagoing ship surely, and so was the Peeter Cog. Holes and patches, sure, and reparations, but they’re well-built ships made of good quality timber.

Feels good. To learn all this, to understand better. And to be part of this, in the conservation bit of the story we're unfolding and continuing together.

About that, the conservation aspects and great talks and discussions we had during the conference, there's lots to say. Too much for this posting. Next time that, soon.

Photos of Eero Ehanti and Heikki Häyhä by Hannu Matikka