Fifty years since Vasa discovery
Published: 24th August 2006
Some 378 years after its sinking, the royal warship Vasa has proven a staple of Stockholm tourism. On Thursday, the museum celebrated the 50th anniversary of the ship?s discovery. Last week the museum had its 25 millionth visitor come through its doors.
The Royal Warship Vasa capsized on her maiden voyage in August 1628 and never once fired her guns at the enemy. Raised in 1961 the Vasa is the only well preserved 17th century warship in the world. She has her own museum in Stockholm, Sweden.
The Vasa museum is celebrating now by showing the one centimeter-wide hole that was made to sample the strange object found sunken in the mud in the waters between Beckholmen and S?dermalm decades ago.
?It took three weeks before it got attention from somebody,? said museum boss Klas Helmerson, talking about the discovery in the 50s. ?Then it was just a notice in [newspaper] Expressen about a man who thought he had found a ship called Vasa.?
It was the wooden plug that verified that is was in fact Gustaf II Adolf?s prized possession that had been found.
There is the story of the Vasa?s many sculptures and their hidden meaning. There is a lot to be learned from studying the decorations of the Vasa. The many sculptures adorning the ship are expressions of various ideas and beliefs of that age. Facts about the swedish King Gustav II Adolf, King of Sweden at the time of Vasa?s building, are abundant when learning about the sculptures.
After Anders Franz?n had localized the Vasa, speculation immediately started as to what could be expected to be found aboard the ship. Seeing as Sweden was a poor nation at the time, scientists were agreed that she was not lavishly decorated. This did not refrain some from claiming that aboard the warship lying on the seabed were vast amounts of treasure. When the task of raising the Vasa had begun, the wreck revealed itself to be very simple and mundane concerning the equipment and provisions she had carried. The officers on board had not lived luxuriously. One of the few valuable objects found was a gold ring. Most of the utilities found on board were made of wood and pottery. Some objects made of tin were found.
In contrast to the simplicity inside the ship, the exterior was found to have been heavily adorned with amazing sculptures. This was a big surprise to the scientists involved. Most of the sculptures were brought to the surface after the Vasa had been raised by divers scanning the mud around the site of the wreckage. All in all, about 500 sculptures were discovered. Several hundred pieces of decorative carpentry were also found. Oak, linden and pine had been used for decoration, oak was the main wood used because of its relative abundancy at the time of the Vasa?s building. Incredibly, traces of gilding were found on some of the sculptures. After 333 years of submergence. The sculptures had originally been painted and in many cases gilded. The Vasa must have been a spectacular sight when she set sail on her maiden voyage.
When the archaeologists began their work of putting together all the items found they faced an immense task. There were no contemporary drawings or reproductions of the Vasa. Instead scientists studied reproductions of other ships from the early 17th century. Of special importance was a copperplate of the french warship Saint Louis. This ship, like the Vasa built by shipbuilders from the dutch school of shipbuilding, was in fact a model for the Vasa. The swedish king Gustav II Adolf was shown a copperplate of the Saint Louis and wanted a similar ship to be built. Only he wanted the ship to be larger, with an additional gun deck. He therefore ordered the shipbuilder to enlarge the Vasa greatly and made the shipbuilders task very difficult. In the end the Vasa turned out to be to top-heavy and her capsizing was inevitable.
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