Touch the Midde Ages - Welcome!
How about touching a 14th century ship, a Hanseatic Cog? A touching experience I can assure you, much recommended. It’s possible, especially now on the Baltic Sea Day this coming August 29th, at the Seaplane Harbor in Tallinn where we’re conserving one.
It’s a wreck, yes, found buried in sand behind Tallinn’s D-terminal in 2022, but it’s still very much a ship, in form and spirit. She can take you to places, show you things, evoke feelings, create moods. Who knows what happens when you face this beauty from times way past? Come and find out!
If this isn’t at all familiar to you, here's a brief recap of what to expect, if you do come this Thursday, or some other time.
It is a Cog-type ship widely used in medieval times by the Hanseatic League merchants to carry goods, for instance timber, salt, furs and cloth. The 25-meter wreck is indeed very special, as this ship type, abundant in the Baltic Sea for centuries, is today known only from impressions found in archival sources and through scarce preserved wrecks.
Hansa ships of the XIVth and XVth centuries. By Artiste anonyme. Wikimedia commons, Public Domain
This is an extremely well-preserved one, showing the typical features of a Cog. She has a straight stem- and sternposts, partly preserved, and there’s the very impressive maststep for the single sail these ships sailed with. The hull is mostly clinker built but three lowest planks are carvel built. All are bound together by iron nails and wooden pegs. The rudder is gone but the impressive rudderpost is still there. Deck beams go through the hull and are protected by wooden fairings outside the hull. Deck planking, masts and all the superstructure have been lost in history.
According to the analyses, the oak-trees of which this ship was made were felled in the late 14th century in what's now Klaipeda, Lithuania. Considering that, the state of preservation is astonishing, thanks to exceptionally favourable burial conditions.
Nevertheless, some 700 years have done their deeds and conservation is needed. The keyword is stabilization. We will not be rebuilding much but preserving the ship as she is. This means extensive cleaning, removal of the very fine sand which blocks all the crevices in between planks and beams preventing drying. This is a fascinating phase as it is a continuation to the archaeological excavation, and we keep making finds: leather shoes, a spoon and textile fragments, all of which bring the people who once sailed this ship very tangibly near.
Another key process is the replacement of nails and bolts, which are no longer holding the ship together. New fastenings need to be installed, and eventually a wholly new steel support system needs to be designed.
The iron bits, especially the huge rudder fastenings totally covered in corrosion crusts, pose perhaps the trickiest conservation challenge, as they’re highly vulnerable to very destructive corrosion reactions after we free them from those protective crusts. They’re totally unremovable from the wood, which means that an in-situ stabilization method had to be invented. For this we utilized a mixture containing for instance fish oil. A very natural and sustainable conservation choice surely, which is according to our goals, and values for that matter. Harmful chemicals are avoided and the whole process is designed in a very cost-efficient and inclusive way.
She has surely seen a lot, this vessel. First in her life as a ship with those sailors whose shoes and other personal items we keep finding, then underwater and underground, where the natural cycle of life tried to turn the wood she’s made of back to earth, and now when excavated and fully exposed, receiving our gentle care. It's a living thing still, in many ways, reacting to the climate and what's around, moving slowly and adjusting to this phase of her life, aided by our conservation actions.
Now it’s your chance to step into the story and see the Lootsi ship in this stage of her life, which is never going to happen again like this. After conservation, she will be exhibited in a museum and then it’s again a wholly new leg in her journey spanning times and places and human minds.
The Lootsi Cog is not ours or the Estonian Maritime Museum’s but yours too, the lucky one, who now has the most special chance of touching and feeling a mediaeval Cog.
How does that feel, what does it evoke in you, don't you want to know?
Use your imagination and let us know. What happened to the cog? Why did she sink? What was she transporting? How did the crew feel? What were the captain's last words? And so on, only the sky’s the limit and not even that. Let your imagination fly. Write your impressions below in comments or send them by email to finst@finst.ee. The best, most imaginative or most exciting proposals will be awarded a book and a gift card to the Maritime Museum.
The Baltic Sea event will take place at the Seaplane Harbour on August 29th from 14:00 to 17:30. It is organized in cooperation with the Finnish Institute in Estonia and the Estonian Maritime Museum
You'll spot the white tent very easily and smiling faces in it ours, and others’, please come, you're very welcome!
Photos: Eero Ehanti unless otherwise stated.
Thumbnail image: "Original Drawings by Willy Stöwer" - H.F. Helmolt, History of the World, Volume VII, Dodd Mead 1902. Plate between pages 32 and 33. Drawn by Willy Stöwer. Cleaned up by Micze. Extracted from Hansa ships of the XIVth and XVth centuries.png, Public Domain,