Sailor Stripes and Marlinspikes

The other day Lisette sent us a message: "Look what you guys dug up, a gorgeous piece of striped fabric!'

There was a photo of pieces of fragmented textile with focus on one of them, showing, indeed, beautiful stripes. Wow.

I knew those pieces. They're something we’d found a few days earlier from underneath the inner planks of the Lootsi ship we’re working on in Tallinn. Which means it's medieval. Late 14th century cloth, with stripes on it. Wow indeed.

She'd started cleaning them, carefully brushing sand away, with archaeologist's skilled hands, and the patterns emerged.

Stripes. Didn't see any of that on the numerous pieces on their freshly dug up moist sandy appearance, when we carefully excavated them under sand.

The Lootsi ship clearly hasn't revealed all her secrets just yet.

Who was wearing something striped on board this ship? The same one whose spoon we found earlier, one of the sailors perhaps, whose shoes have been found here? A striped shirt maybe, a very very distant predecessor to the French Navy Marinière and those Jean-Paul Gaultier shirts?

Well, maybe it’s something completely different, this fabric, let’s wait for studies and analyses, which will be of huge importance. What is it actually, the fabric, what’s it made of, how, for what purpose? There’s even eggs of some insects still on it, further evidence of abundant life onboard the ship once upon a time. What will science reveal from those?

The day we excavated those pieces was just another Tuesday on the ship, late in the day already, we were about to call it a day. I stood up on the ship, stretching my torso, which was aching a bit after spending the day mostly lying down in twisted positions cleaning away sand from the structures, stretching to reach all the way underneath those amazingly wide oak-planks. There's still plenty of sand there, huge amounts. Loose and removable now after winter's frozen impossibility.

I stood up, looked at Heikki who was doing the same at the other end, towards the bow, kneeling in twisted positions. Cleaning the sandy surfaces and crevices with shovels and spatulas and spoons and brushes and what not, whatever works, in reaching to the distant spots underneath the structures.

Just a moment ago there had been colleagues of ours, specialists of shipbuilding, looking around, studying closely the structure. Because where else in the world can you observe the structure of a medieval Cog like this? And while they were doing that, they found a horn. Just like that, upon looking under one of the planks. The Lootsi ship clearly hasn’t revealed all her secrets just yet.

It's a horn, yes, but it's very likely also a marlinspike, a tool used for ropemaking, for which the natural shape of a horn happens to be very suitable. There's been others like it found onboard the ship.

Maybe the sailors made ropes during the long voyages. Makes sense. Because of the need for ropes in ships and because of passing time.

Time passing. Centuries since those sailors made ropes. Year since we started our adventures in Tallinn. More than four years since we finished the other Cog we've worked on, the Kadriorg one.

It was on that other ship we had actually spent the previous day, vacuum-cleaning it. She's been there for years now, exhibited in the Fat Margaret museum, fully exposed to the gazes of visitors and elements around. It's a good museum environment but that doesn't stop dust accumulation.

How are those conditions now in the hall where the cog is, now, after these four years? The relative humidity measurement inside the ship showed 41 %RH, which is at the lower limit we set for the space. The set values were 40-60 % RH year round, so higher RH would be better for the ship.

So how about the wood, how’s it doing? Priit measured the moisture in the wood, and it was 11 %. Doesn’t get drier than that. We can quite certainly expect that the cracks there are at the moment will not get bigger. Another thing which was checked was the tension of the nuts on metal framing holding the hull together. Some were loose and will be fastened.

Exhibitions need maintenance. That's what we did that day, with our efficient team of conservators and archaeologists.

After vacuuming and brushing all the surfaces we could safely reach, the grayish dusty look gave away to the natural warm hue of that stunning medieval wood free of any conservation chemicals. She didn't need them.

Nor does the wood of the Lootsi Cog, on which we’re working now. She's at a wholly different phase of her life, undergoing conservation before she too is eventually getting that privilege of being fully exposed to the gazes and thoughts and feelings of museum visitors, who'll be able to see her in the future museum building they're planning for her.

It's very few shipwrecks which get such a spotlight in a museum. Come to think of it, it's very few museum objects of any kind which ever get that privilege of being presented to people, to whom they essentially belong. Almost all of the objects in the care of museums spend their lives mostly in storage, perhaps never to be seen by anybody. That's such a melancholic thought. That's why we're very happy to know that the Lootsi ship will get its stage and spotlight in a museum.

But that's looming ahead in the future. Now she's still full of sand, unsupported and vulnerable, needing our loving care, which is why we were there that day with Heikki.

From where I was standing at that moment, I could barely see him through the jungle of criss-crossing wooden supports holding the ship together. Eventually those will be gone, replaced by something much more invisible and elegant, something similar to what's now holding together the Kadriorg cog.

Suddenly I decided to take a video, to record this moment we’re witnessing, around and inside the shipwreck. Show the whole thing, in a walk-video. The most humble one, wholly unplanned, just tap rec on my phone and go. To show where we're at in our project, right now, in April 2024.

So I jump out, walk around the ship to the stern-part. Zoom into the huge iron fastening of the rudder. A good place to start, from a detail to the whole. I tap rec, and start walking around the ship, recording the pose she's been placed, here in the tent outside the Estonian Maritime Museum's Seaplane Harbour hangars.

I just move by her side, filming what's there, walking pace, diving then in between the cut sections of the hull to board the ship. I pass Heikki with my improvised camera ride and walk on, towards the stern of the ship, hitting my head to one of the wooden supports. Luckily I'm helmeted, always when on board. Too bad for the stability of my tiny film, though.

There's the mast step, the huge oak beam, on which the base of the mast rested once upon a time. I wonder where the mast is? Or the sail, the single large square sail they had on these ships, the Hanseatic merchants?

I jump over another section of the ship, where I lower the phone to one of the “tunnels” underneath the planks. It’s a fine view, and something that hasn’t been seen in almost 700 years, as it was just moments ago when I had freed that particular tunnel from sand and debris.

Then I stop recording. Breathe a bit, looking at Heikki at the bow, behind that jungle of wooden supports. Still working, I see. OK, so I’ll set to work on cleaning yet another row of planks. Opening another tunnel, to let air circulate.

And there it is, the first piece of fabric, after which I halt and proceed with great care. Extracting those pieces one by one, and leaving them for Lisette to clean and study. Which is what she does, and afterwards we get the joyous message: “Look what you guys dug up, a gorgeous piece of striped fabric!”

Days later I was in Kotka, Finland, at the opening of the Oceanista - Fashion and the Sea -exhibition, dressed in a vintage navy shirt, looking at those Gaultier striped shirts on display, sensing the passing of time, feeling once again part of the huge story of humanity.