You Can Now See 750-Year-Old Artifacts Recovered From England’s Oldest Shipwreck

In 2020, a local scuba diver and skipper stumbled upon the well-preserved remains of a rare 13th-century shipwreck off the coast of Dorset, England. The ship, which became known as the “Mortar Wreck,” was given the highest level of government protection in 2022, making it England’s oldest known protected wreck site with a visible surviving hull.

At the museum, visitors can get an up-close look at some of the objects researchers have recovered from the 750-year-old wreck, which was transporting limestone gravestones and grinding mortars when it sank. The Mortar Wreck items are being displayed alongside other remnants of the area’s maritime past, including an Iron Age logboat discovered in Poole Harbour in 1964 and objects recovered from other medieval wrecks in Studland Bay and the Swash Channel Wrecks. The museum reopened last month after a multi-million-dollar renovation

“You can’t help getting sucked in,” says Joe Raine, collections officer at the Poole Museum, to BBC News’ Patrick Hughes and Charlotte Andrews. “Hopefully [visitors] start to see a little of themselves in those people from 800 years ago.”

Sometime around 1250 C.E., the Mortar Wreck set off for an unknown destination with its precious cargo. The vessel is a “clinker” ship, crafted from overlapping planks of wood. Tree-ring analyses suggest the planks came from Irish oak trees that were cut down between 1242 and 1265 C.E., according to a statement from Bournemouth University. Researchers aren’t sure where the vessel was constructed, because Irish oak was a popular and widely exported material for building ships during the medieval period.

Researchers don’t know why the ship sank. However, they suspect the heavy cargo might have had something to do with it, “particularly if the … stone was pitching around in a storm,” Hefin Meara, a marine archaeologist at Historic England, told the Telegraph’s Craig Simpson in 2022.

“It seems to have been setting out from Poole Harbour, and gone down about [a mile] out,” Meara added. “It’s close enough to swim to shore, but, in stormy weather, it could have been fatal.”

Whatever the cause of its demise, the vessel sank to the bottom of Poole Bay on the edge of the Swash Channel, where low-oxygenated water, sand and stones helped preserve it for centuries.

Maritime archaeologists had long known there might be something submerged at the site. But they’d never dived down to explore because they thought it was “rubbish,” says Tom Cousins, a maritime archaeologist at Bournemouth University, to the BBC.

However, Trevor Small had a hunch he might find more than just “rubbish” on the seafloor. Small, a local charter boat skipper, got permission to dive the site in the summer of 2020 and discovered the headline-making wreck and its cargo.

Maritime archaeologists, including Cousins, have been investigating ever since. They’ve recovered numerous items, including a cauldron used for cooking food over a fire and two gravestone slabs in “remarkably” good condition, per Bournemouth University.

One of the slabs, which weighs around 154 pounds and measures 5 feet long, is decorated with a wheel-headed cross—a symbol that was popular during the early 13th century. The other, which weighs roughly 440 pounds and measures 6.5 feet long, bears the splayed arm cross design that was more common in the mid-13th century.

The crosses indicate the grave slabs may have been meant for high-status members of the clergy, and were likely meant to be coffin lids or crypt monuments.

The gravestone slabs are made of Purbeck stone, a type of limestone found on the Isle of Purbeck on England’s southern coast. It’s made from the tightly packed shells of freshwater snails and often referred to as “Purbeck marble” because it can be polished to a shiny, marble-like finish.

Purbeck stone was used as a building material all over Britain, including in landmarks like the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey. It was also a popular choice for gravestone slabs across the European continent.

“The 13th century is the heyday of the marble industry—you won’t find a church or cathedral that doesn’t have Purbeck marble in it,” Cousins tells BBC News.

Source: smithsonianmag.com.       Sarah Kuta.        Photos. Bournemouth University