Abstract: |
The Mary Rose sank in minutes in 1545, taking all her contents and most of her crew to the bottom of the sea. The conservation of the hull, and more than 26,000 objects recovered during her excavation, has been a massive undertaking, begun before the hull was raised from the seabed in 1982 and continuing into the twenty-first century. This book provides an introduction to the conservation programme devised for the Mary Rose, and the principles, objectives and problems of marine archaeological conservation. A huge range of objects were recovered from the ship, including wood, textiles, leather, ceramics, glass, stone, metals, rope, pieces of sail-cloth, and many hundreds of animal and human bones. The processes of decay and degradation and the results of bacterial and animal infestation that affect shipwrecks in general, and the Mary Rose in particular, are described, along with the methods used for the treatment and preservation of each major category of material. New methods and treatments had to be devised and tested due to the variety and immensity of the task, including treatment to halt the effects of 450 years of immersion. The conservation work involved not only the stabilization of the hull and objects from the wreck but also the problems of museum display and continuing storage of objects. The book also describes the design and construction of specialized display cases, ensuring that the museum could control and monitor potentially destructive environmental factors such as light, humidity, heat and atmospheric pollution, as well as allowing good public access to the objects. Appendices detail the project's conservation facilities, and the processing and storage of environmental samples and materials. |