Wreck in the Wadden Sea: ‘Objects tell the story’
More than 40 years ago, a wrecked merchant ship was found in the Wadden Sea. PhD student Geke Burger looked at this archaeological find from a historical perspective.
After the ship, named Scheurrak SO1, was found, an archaeological investigation followed as early as the 1980s. More than six thousand objects or parts of objects were unearthed, numbered and described, from fish bones from the provisions to a striking quantity of shoes. Among other things, it led to the conclusion that the ship must have sunk after 1590, perhaps in the infamous Tesselschader disaster of 1593.
Findings complex
At the same time, the archaeological survey did not tell the whole story of the ship, says Burger. 'There were lots of separate reports and excavation data, which were never compiled. Moreover, there had been very limited historical research on the ship.' It was known that Scheurrak SO1 was probably a Straitsman, a ship carrying grain from the Baltic on its way to the Mediterranean. Yet there were also many questions: for instance, what were all those shoes doing on board such a ship?
Burger: ‘I studied the entire find complex and related it to archival sources where possible. To do that, I used the concept of the “maritime cultural landscape”, mapping the network around the ship using both historical and archaeological sources.'
European network
Many things come together in a ship: groups of people, geographical areas, cultural patterns and historical developments. ‘The sailors on board manned the vessel during the voyage,’ says Burger, ‘but on shore there were also mast makers, sail makers, rope makers and other craftsmen whose work was needed to make shipping possible. There were also Dutch merchants who had their cargoes of Baltic grain transported, including many merchants with a migrant background who had fled north from the Southern Netherlands. The guns came from England, the ship's timber largely from Scandinavia, and the return cargo was often Portuguese salt. The Baltic procurement markets and Mediterranean outlets for the grain also deserve attention.'
One particular record found in the archives solved the riddle of the shoes. ‘Seventy to eighty pairs is a lot for a crew of about 25 people,’ says Burger. 'And the richly decorated shoes were not at all practical for work on board. Moreover, some of the shoes were found on deck among the merchandise, some of them unused. So the shoes seemed to be partly trade goods. In the archives, I eventually found a letter from a merchant agent from Genoa to his employer in Leiden saying that there was a shortage of shoes in Italy, advising him to send a cargo of shoes by ship.'
Objects central
Burger emphasises the importance of the objects found in this regard. 'A lot of historical research focuses on written sources, but they hardly address issues such as life on board, seamen's clothing and leisure activities. By focusing on the objects, you get much closer to ordinary people than you could based on written sources. We know what they wore, what plates they ate from, what their sleeping quarters looked like and what personal objects they carried. Studying the daily context of sailors through objects is the innovative part of my research. If we look at history from material culture, a new story can be told.'