On Breathing

Smooth surfaces. Blurred shapes. Underneath, sharp edges, visible in places but largely still hidden in all that sand. Moist scent, faintly moldy, perhaps. The air we breathe, in here, inside an ancient ship, in the white tent outside the Estonian Maritime museum in Lennusadam, Tallinn.

This is the Lootsi cog, the medieval ship under conservation. It’s a scorching hot day and we’ve been sweating it away in this tent. Our working place for the summer, and the next, and all the seasons in between and after, until it's done, conservation of this wonder of shipbuilding from times past.

Humidity, from the age-old ship. Humility, from us conservators, in front of her. Humming, from the fan up on the wall, keeping the air moving. It must move, so that it’s safe and pleasant to work in here, but also so that the ship dries, slowly and in a controlled manner.

It’s not only us breathing in here, she needs to breathe as well.

Sand. Inside the ship, everywhere. At our feet. In our hands. Lots of it. It must be taken away, from the crevices of the ship, to allow airflow everywhere. Otherwise she’s gonna suffocate. Otherwise all is gonna stay moist and mushrooms will grow and tiny plants keep on appearing and what not. Mold. All kinds of life-forms we don’t want here and about which we wrote about last time in this blog. She needs to breathe!

Now the mushrooms are going, with the sand and debris blocking the ship’s forms. That's one thing we’ve been doing this time around, cleaning the ship, revealing the sharp edges of these enormous medieval planks. Those oaks must’ve been huge!

Five wheelbarrowfulls. That's how much sand we shoveled and brushed off and wheeled away today from the crevices of the ship. Very fine sand. Very carefully. Removed it, poured it from buckets to the wheelbarrow and took it away, to be piled nearby for now, near the former Patarei prison towering impressively next to our tent.

This has to be done carefully, cleaning. It's an early 14th century ship after all. A sturdy one, strong fellow, yes, in incredibly good condition considering her age and what she is, but still, can't expect her to withstand too harsh handling.

And there's a fine grid of red strings now on the ship, because of documentation purposes. So that we can map possible finds accurately and follow closely and consistently what’s going to happen in the months and years to come. How the wood is drying, and how the cleaning proceeds.

It looks good, the grid, I must say. Was such a pleasure to draw it there. But it makes moving around onboard the ship even more difficult. Wasn't easy even before that, because of all the criss-crossing wooden supports that are needed to keep the ship safely together at this early phase of conservation. They will eventually go, but what a maze it is now, this ship! And what a pleasure it is to move around there now!

Five wheelbarrowfulls today. How much sand we end up carrying away from here? What should be done with it? A small beach perhaps? Material for artists? Or something for children to play with, go wildly creative? It's very special sand after all. It's been covering a medieval shipwreck!

But for now, we just need to take it away, so that the ship can breathe. Forever and particularly now, as she is drying, slowly. The sand, what's left of it after last summer's excavations, is covering a lot of the bottom parts. Thick layers of it. Air doesn't flow. She can't breathe!

So we use our spatulas and brushes and other tools with gentle hands, skillfully, not going too deep, not right now, not just yet. Drying too fast is not what we want either, which is why we monitor the moisture content of the wood systemically and try to adjust the humidity levels in the whole tent as needed. But now we clean deep enough to free the surfaces from excess sand, to enable airflow inside the structures.

She breathes!

While we're slowly and carefully removing the sand, layer by layer, constantly looking for bones, ceramic pieces, wooden spoons (yes, there was one!) and other items hiding in sand, the sharp edges of the huge planks and frames are revealed. What a rewarding feeling it is. This is a very pleasant phase of the conservation project, as there's something new for us all the time, amazing structures and shapes formed by an axe in skillful hands coming to light after centuries of oblivion.

The fine shapes are slowly emerging, for instance the curves bending around the enormous mast step. It's sharp and neat on the other side, the axe-work, but way clumsier on the other. Did somebody else do the other side, somebody not that careful? Or perhaps less skillful?

Such an important observation. The people who worked on this ship come alive. And with them, so does the ship. It's a human-made thing, for a reason and for a purpose. Now she's gaining other reasonings and purposes. Museum objects are materials, yes, and that’s what us conservators are trained to deal with, sure, but they’re also something much more. Their significance lies in intangible meanings. And, there’s a spiritual side in each object as well.

In that vein, we’re happy to be freeing the Lootsi cog from sandy covering. So that she can breathe.