Glad to meet you, Lootsi ship!

Today we stood on something very familiar. A shipwreck, ages old. Really old. More than 700 years? Big planks, thick beams, iron fastenings. That unimaginable feeling, all that sand, the wet smell, our twisted moves under and around supporting wooden beams criss-crossing the ship. That touching feeling of standing and moving on something so old. Familiar people around, in a location we knew very well. Lennusadam in Tallinn. A tent.

This has happened before.

 We are Eero Ehanti and Heikki Häyhä. Conservators, among other things. In 2017 we were invited to a project in Tallinn, a very special one, one of a kind of type of a situation.

 They had found a medieval shipwreck in the Kadriorg park, very close to the center of Tallinn. It was an amazing shipwreck, that of a Cog, the ship type used by the Hanseatic League merchants in the Baltic Sea. They used it for centuries. It was the common cargo-ship of the time, a very practical working vessel needed for moving goods from a place to another.

 Waters do not separate, they connect. Seas, rivers, lakes, they're a network, which can be used to ease access to distant places, and nearby ones alike. And they have been used, always, as long as humans have been seaborne, and thanks to that the world's isolated networks have been slowly bound together. Waterways are essential for movements of goods, people and ideas.

 In the medieval Europe one of the most important shiptypes to move in that network was the Cog, a distinct type of a ship designed through centuries' trials to master the Baltic Sea conditions and carry maximum amount of cargo. For ages those were known only from literature and impressions in coins and seals.

 But they still exist, as wrecks and remains on the bottom of seas. Except in Tallinn, where they found one in a land excavation site, in a building construction site in the Kadriorg park in 2015.

 She was buried in fine sand, and her condition was simply put amazing. A large part of a whole ship, still recognizably a ship, and in such a condition that you could  walk on her huge planks. Certainly not a given situation when it comes to 14th century wood, or any archaeological find for that matter.

 What a stroke of luck! To have such a treasure. For the Estonians, the world, for humanity.

 But it had to be preserved, somehow, and made accessible to people. That's where we stepped in, us, with our special training for conservation of marine archaelogical finds - shipwreck stuff - and decades of experience in it.

 Hence, in 2017-2019 we went regularly to Tallinn from our Helsinki homes and spend days working on this one of a kind of a find. We stood on it, touched it, took samples, documented, discussed with our dear colleagues at the Estonian Maritime museum, endlessly, one could say, as preserving something like this is not straightforward. There's no formula, nor recipe or procedure to follow.

 Eventually all went well, and in November 2019, the exhibition presenting the Kadriorg Cog was opened at the newly renovated Fat Margaret premises of the Estonian Maritime museum. There the wreck still is, standing proudly, winning the tests of time and natural elements. She's high in the air, posing, proud of her curves, which are wise and age-old. Worn and torn, yes, but still there. Not a wreck but a ship. What a beauty!

 That was it, we thought. What a nice project, and a successful one, for which we are most grateful to our colleagues at the Maritime Museum - friends really - for giving us this opportunity to work on such an unique find and project. One of a kind, after which we could go back to our normal work and life in Helsinki, most satisfied and proud of what we had achieved.

 Except that it wasn't. Not an unique experience, nor one of a kind of thing.

 Who would have thought. Another Cog.

 Spring 2022. Excavation site in Tallinn's harbour, just behind the D-terminal so familiar to Finns traveling between our capitals. There was a ship, partly excavated, partially exposed. And we were standing on it, getting goosebumps, of the familiarity of the experience. We knew those huge oak planks, that humongous maststep. That structure, those shapes. Riveting in between the planks, the iron fastenings keeping it all together, corroded but still there. The smell! Wet and ages old. The shapes! Fine sand covering everything.

 We had seen this before, felt it. We know this type, and this kind of an excavation site.

 Another Cog, very well preserved? In any case, it's old, and it's big. Bigger than the previous one. So big it couldn't be moved in one piece as was done with the Kadriorg Cog but had to be cut in four pieces for the move to the Lennusadam premises of the Estonian Maritime Museum.

 Jump to spring 2023. This is now, and we're standing in Lennusadam, in a tent which is not the same one in which we worked on the Kadriorg Cog, but just next to it. And there she is, this new wreck, in four pieces but still clearly a ship, not just some fragmentary remain of a wreck. She's big! Very big. But very alike to her sister standing proudly in Fat Margaret. The same shapes, similar structures, very similar condition of the materials. Sand everywhere. And we're standing on it, getting goosebumps, of the familiarity of the situation.

 Here we go again. We're in the project, making the conservation plan and realizing it so that the ship preserves as it is and will be available and accessible to people, to whom she belongs.

 This is a start and we're just staring to know her, this other ship. She's alike to the other one, yes, but not the same. No wooden ship is the same, no conditions are ever 100% similar. This is another case and we will need to find the ways to save her and make it so that everything is accessible to people, also during conservation.

 This time around, public engagement is even more central than last time. There's a window in the tent, a fish-eye kind of a one, which allows passers by to see the ship and us working on it.

 This is of huge importance. Conservation is not just something that happens behind the curtains of museums but accessible and something peoole can participate in and relate to. Because it is of interest and of importance, this work of ours, essentially fight against natural degradation process. They will happen, sooner or later, but we can halt them. And make things accessible to people, who can relate to them and find similarities to their own lives and feelings, to humanity.

 Museums are for people. For you. So is conservation. That's why we do it. So that this jewel of a shipwreck preserves and is accessible to you, is in use. Comes alive, once again, after some 700 years of oblivion.

 What is it where gonna do this time? We know, roughly, but then again don't. There's things to consider, details that are unique to this ship, like huge iron fastenings of the rudder. How do we preserve those? It's corroded iron, very reactive now freshly after excavation and getting exposed to oxygen, light, the natural elements they have been happily isolated from for centuries.

 How do we preserve all this? How is everything stabilized? It is to be found out in this blog, within next two years. The story unfolds right here. Slowly.

 So what did we do in our first days at work here? Well, plenty of planning and documentation. Preparations.

 But one very practical deed we did start. That is related to the fact that we don't want the wet wood to dry too fast, no, we cannot allow that, as it would result in cracking, no matter how good the condition of the wood is. That means maintaining as favorable condition as possible.

 We think it also means sealing the ends of planks. There are plenty of exposed plank endings now, because the ship is cut in four pieces. Because of the structure of wood, drying happens most dramatically along the cell structure, at the ends of planks. So, in order to slow down drying, we decided to protect the ends of planks and beams.

 Protect it with what? Well, beeswax! Why? Because it's natural non toxic cheap material that can be applied easily. It's safe and very sustainable. Conservation should be as sustainable as possible, economically as well, and that's what we're doing here. Sustainability is at the core of our decision making.

 Another guiding principle in our work is to consider this as a ship, not just as materials and as an archaelogical find. She's a ship and she's stood the tests of time and elements, she too, as did her sister, the Kadriorg Cog, whom we treated as a real ship as well, adopting age-old shipbuilding techniques. Now we set to do the same, and look forward to familiarizing ourselves with another medieval ship.

 Glad to meet you, Lootsi ship, what a beauty you are!

 All images in this post are of the Lootsi ship, by Eero Ehanti