Vasa, a Swedish warship, built in Stockholm in 1628, sank on her first voyage in Stockholm Harbour. Vasa is housed at the Vasa Museum. Purchase records from the time tell us that timber was bought in eastern Sweden. But timber was also purchased from Riga and Königsberg (modern day Kaliningrad) and from Amsterdam. The dendrochronological study of the timber in the ship revealed which timbers come from these diverse sources, and where in the ship it was used. These analyses confirmed that there were indeed timbers from at least four distinct sources in the ship, including a Baltic source and a west Swedish source. It is showing us that even in a highly forested region like Sweden, still timber was imported from abroad.
The Bøle Ship is a wreck found in the river Skienselva near Bøle in southern Norway and is dated to 1380s. It is housed at the Norwegian Maritime Museum. This ship sank with a cargo of whetstones from Eidsborg. We found that every timber analysed is from the southern Baltic region, more specifically, from around the mouth of the Vistula River. Even the keel, which might be taken as the foundation timber for the ship, has a southern Baltic source. Rather than evidence for transport of timber, this ship was built at the mouth of the Vistula, exploiting the abundant timber available in that region at this time.
As a contrast to this study, we examined the Bremen Ship from 1378, found in the river Weser just outside Bremen. Archaeological observations suggest that the ship never sailed, and it was thus probably built near to where it was found. It is housed at the Deutsches Schifffahrtsmuseum in Bremerhaven. Extensive dendrochronology of this wreck demonstrated that the ship was made of local oaks. We have been examining the timber of the Bremen ship to categorize the quality of the wood used. It seems that the hinterland of Bremen had, by the late 14th century, become a quite open landscape. Why did the ship builders use this difficult material to build their ship?
Oak from the Baltic was another vital study. For many centuries, from around the mid-14th century onwards, oak from the Hanseatic towns along the Baltic coast was being exported westwards. We often see this material in the archaeological remains in Western Europe, but it is usually not as bulky building timber. Rather, it is as staves, clapboards and planking. This is also reflected in the written record. Timber cargos in the form of planks, wainscots, clapboards and staves in ships passing from the Baltic Sea to the west are listed. Churches were decorated with panels and altarpieces made from Baltic oak and later fine art works were painted on panels made from it. We know of this trade also from the written record, but it is rare to find historical oak in this region. It seems that as the oak was sent to markets for export, people built with pine locally. From our analyses, we have however presented a theory on where this oak was growing.
