ANCIENT GALLEY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 October 1939, Page 3

ANCIENT GALLEY

DISCOVERY AT SUTTON HOO HISTORY OF SHIPBUILDING. IMPORTANT GAP FILLED. The recent discovery at Sutton Hoo, I in Suffolk, of a galley containing the body of an East Anglian chief supposed to bo King Raedwald. may be important in filling in a gap in our knowledge of the history of shipbuilding, writes R. H. Hodgkin, in the “Manchester Guardian.” Since Raedwald reigned in the first quarter of the seventh century, his galley, presumably built about A.D. 600, comes midway in point of time between the boat discovered at Nydam, in Southern Denmark, which is thought to have been made about A.D. 400, and the ship built about A.D. 800, and later used for the burial of a Norwegian queen at Oseberg, near the Oslo fiord. The special interest of the Nydam boat is that it is the nearest we can get to the type of vessel in which our German ancestors crossed the North Sea when they invaded Britain. The boat was 70ft in length, rather flat and broad in the middle, but higher and narrow at either side. It was clinker-built, and the five strakes or planks which formed each side were held together by iron nails. A curious feature of its construction was that the planks were not nailed to the ribs of the boat but were tied to them by bast ropes.

AN EXPERIMENTAL ART. It has been suggested that the loose connection between the framework and the planking ■ may have given I elasticity to the boat and that the boat may have been well adapted for riding the waves. But the truth is that in the fourth century the North Europeans were only s experimenting in the art of shipbuilding. The Nydam boat, having no external keel, was lacking in stability. The framework was not strong enough to carry a mast, and so the boat could not be sailed. It was rowed by 14 oars on each side, but its rowlocks were primitive, single shanting pegs, which made it impossible to back-water. Instead of a rudder an oar was held over the stern. Scandinavia, owing to the long period in which it was the custom to bury the dead in boats, has produced traces of ships built before A.D. 800, but the advance made in the four centuries after the Nydam boat is best seen by studying that found at Oseberg. The Oseberg ship was excavated in .1904. Its wood, like that of the Nydam ship, was wonderfully preserved by the peat around it. It was more than 64ft long, and very broad. It is not altogether comparable with the Nydam boat, since it was mot built for the open sea. It was a royal pleasure boat for the fiords, rowable by 15 oars on each side. MANY IMPROVEMENTS. The improvements in its construction were many. It had a good keel and could be sailed. The oars were manipulated through holes in the gunwale. Its oarlike rudder was fitted near the stern. The lines were graceful. The contents of the ship were even more interesting than the ship itself. All the possessions most prized by the Norwegian queen were deposited in it. They were sumptuous because the Norwegians were already becoming enriched by the spoils carried back by the Vikings from the British Isles and the rest of Christendom.

The Sutton Hoo burial seems to resemble that of Oseberg in its main features, but to differ from it in three particulars. First, since the shield of Raedwajd has decayed except for its iron boss, we cannot hope that any wooden articles have been preserved as at Oseberg. There it was the things of wood, carved with rare art, which have thrown extraordinary light on the civilisation of the age—the four-wheeled wagon, the beds, sledges, and chairs. In addition to these beautiful things a great variety of iron tools and utensils and ample supplies of food had been placed in the ship, so that it was possible to reconstruct the royal home almost in its every detail. OTHER DIFFERENCES. Secondly, what were lacking at Oseberg were the queen’s gold and silver objects. These had been mostly plundered by robbers who had broken into the burial mound for its treasure. At Sutton Hoo, on the other hand, the precious metals, including Frankish coins of gold, seem to be best preserved. Thirdly, the funeral rites at Oseberg included not only the slaying of animals but also one of the queen’s attendant women, whose body was found laid by her side. The heathens of East Anglia, it seems, refrained from such horrid bloodshed.

Other Viking burial ships from later in the ninth and in the tenth centuries are well known. One found at Gokstad, near the Oslo-Fiord, gives the best idea of an ocean-going man-of-war of the period. A good example from Colonsay, Scotland, examined in 1882, showed how the Vikings combined- trade with plunder. The dead man was given not only his horse and weapons of war but also his trader’s scales. The frugal-minded followers who planned the funeral only sacrificed a boat less than 15 feet long for his grave. Between the East Anglian shipburial and that at Colonsay there is an interval of about 400 years.