Did Scandinavians Beat Columbus to America Twice?

AFP


Oct. 22, 2003 — Archeologists have already established that Viking explorers beat Christopher Columbus to America by about 500 years, but experts in Sweden now hope to determine whether another group of Scandinavians landed in the New World in 1362, 130 years before Columbus.

A 200-pound rune stone, a block of stone featuring symbolic engravings common during the Viking era, has been sent from the United States to Sweden's Museum of National Antiquities to establish whether it really dates from 1362, as its markings claim, or is just a hoax.

If confirmed as an authentic relic, the so-called Kensington stone would prove that another wave of explorers, more than 300 years after the Vikings, made it to the American continent before Columbus did in 1492.

"The stone is very important. But whether or not history will have to be re-written because of this stone is very difficult to say," museum curator Karl-Olof Cederberg said.

A farmer in Kensington, Minn., claimed to have found the stone on his property in 1898. The man, Olof Ohman, originally from Sweden, immediately suspected it was a rune stone.

He handed the slab over to experts, many of whom dismissed it as a fake; after years of dispute over its origin, the stone was returned to Ohman, who put it to use as a doorstep.

Decades later, interest in the stone was resuscitated and it eventually ended up on display in various U.S. museums, including the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

Now, a dozen experts have descended upon Sweden's Museum of National Antiquities — which is featuring the rune stone in an exhibit that opens Thursday — to examine the stone's inscriptions and geological composition to determine its true origin.

According to experts, the inscription, translated into English, reads: "Eight Geats (southern Swedes) and 22 Norwegians on this exploration journey from Vinland in (unclear) west. We made camp at two (unclear) one day's journey north of this stone. We went fishing one day. Upon our return we found 10 men red from blood and death, Ave Maria. Save us from evil. There are 10 men down by the sea guarding our ships, 14 days' journey from this island. Year 1362."

Those who believe that the stone is authentic claim that the marshy surroundings of its origin were areas of water in 1362, and therefore the area in Minnesota where it was found was indeed an island at the time.

At least one U.S. expert, Scott Walter, has concluded that the stone was exposed to weather and winds for several centuries, boosting the claim that it is authentic.

One theory is that the Swedish-Norwegian king Magnus Eriksson in 1354 sent a team of explorers to find out what had happened to an expedition he had sent to Greenland. It would be this team that ultimately ended up in Minnesota.

However, skeptics note that the era of Viking exploration is believed to have ended some 300 years before the stone's date, and point out that the Viking practice of engraving rune stones was no longer common in the 1300s.

Others also wonder whether a group that has just found 10 companions savagely murdered would hang around to laboriously engrave a rune stone.

The Stockholm museum is now pinning its hopes on modern technology and a group of Nordic experts to once and for all resolve the more than 100-year-old mystery of the Kensington stone.

"Whichever conclusions are drawn, they will be interesting. If it is a bluff, it's still interesting because it would show that emigrants used the stone as part of their identity-building, playing on the references to the Vikings," Cederberg said.

The Vinland Map

Public release date: 24-Nov-2003


Contact: Michael Bernstein
m_bernstein@acs.org
202-872-6042
American Chemical Society

Recent conclusions that the storied Vinland Map is merely a clever forgery are based on a flawed understanding of the evidence, according to a scientist at the Smithsonian Institution. Results from last year's study debunking the map's authenticity can also be construed to boost the validity of its medieval origins, the scientist claims.
The report will appear in the Dec. 1 edition of Analytical Chemistry, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.

The Vinland Map is a drawing of Iceland, Greenland and the northeastern seaboard of North America that has been dated to the mid-15th century, suggesting that Norse explorers charted North America long before Columbus. The map, which has had a contentious history since its discovery in the 1950s, resides at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University. It has been valued at more than $20 million.

"Many scholars have agreed that if the Vinland Map is authentic, it is the only existing cartographic representation of North America prior to Columbus," says Jacqueline Olin, a member of the advisory committee of the Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education in Washington, D.C. "Its date is important in establishing the history of European knowledge of the lands bordering the western North Atlantic, and the deeper question of Columbus's own possible awareness."

In July 2002, two papers about the Vinland Map were published simultaneously in separate scientific journals — one in Radiocarbon, which set a date for the map's parchment at about 1434 using carbon dating; and another in Analytical Chemistry, claiming that the map is really just a clever 20th-century forgery on medieval parchment.

Olin, who was involved in the Radiocarbon research, wrote the new Analytical Chemistry paper in response to the controversy sparked by last year's dueling papers.

Since the age of the parchment is not in dispute, Olin says, "The information needed to prove that the Vinland Map is medieval rests with the ink used to draw it."

Before the development of the printing press, manuscripts were written in either carbon-based inks or iron gallotannate inks. Erosion of the latter often leads to yellow staining - a feature exhibited by the Vinland Map.

In last year's Analytical Chemistry paper, British researchers analyzed the ink with Raman microprobe spectroscopy and claimed that it is made up of two parts: a yellowish line that adheres strongly to the parchment overlaid with a black line that appears to have flaked off.

Because they found the black line contained carbon, the researchers assumed the ink was not iron gallotannate, meaning there should be no yellow staining. They proposed that the yellow line was put there by a clever forger who knew it was a common feature of medieval manuscripts. This line contained anatase, a precipitated form of titanium dioxide. Since anatase was not synthesized until 1917, they considered this as evidence that the Vinland Map is a forgery.

To the contrary, the ink may help prove the map's authenticity, says Olin. "The presence of carbon in an ink is not evidence that the ink is a carbon ink," she says. "It could just as well have been iron gall ink to which carbon has been added as a colorant." Carbon was added to medieval iron gall inks to enable scribes to view their writing while the transparent ink mixture was reacting to form its black color.

"The source of the iron in medieval inks is green vitriol, an iron sulfate," Olin continues. "Green vitriol would include anatase if the iron source from which it was made included the iron-titanium mineral ilmenite."

Researchers have reported the absence of ilmenite in the ink of the Vinland Map, but that would only mean it was not present in the sulfate used to make the ink, Olin says. In earlier work, she made a simulated 15th century ink using ilmenite for the preparation of green vitriol. The resulting ink contained anatase, and no ilmenite.

There has also been no discussion about the significance of the other elements found in the ink, Olin says. She used archaeological reports to show that the presence of copper, aluminum and zinc — all found in the Vinland Map's ink — would be consistent with medieval production methods from green vitriol. Additionally, these elements raise serious doubts about the possibility of forgery, because 20th century iron gall inks would not be produced using medieval hydrometallurgy, which is responsible for the presence of these elements. No forger in the first half of the 20th century could be expected to know about these extra components, according to Olin.

Jason Gorss

One man’s mission to find Atlantis

MOUNT OLYMPUS, Cyprus, Oct. 29 — Some say it is in the Aegean, others in the Azores, off the Celtic Ridge of Britain or even as far as the South China Sea, but a California researcher says everyone has been looking in the wrong place. Atlantis was in Cyprus, and the ancient philosopher Plato is about to be vindicated, according to Robert Sarmast.

“THE ISLAND of Cyprus was, or is, part of Atlantis — a mountaintop,” Sarmast said from his home in Los Angeles. “This region is at the heart of the ancient world.”
Drawn from accounts by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Solon, Plato’s description of a powerful civilization destroyed by the wrath of God has fired the dreams of explorers for centuries.
Of late, it has inspired fantasies of web-limbed people living in glass bubbles on the seabed; of old, it was thought by some to be the Garden of Eden, where mankind fell from God’s grace.
Geologists say the land mass of Cyprus’s central mountain range once formed the ocean floor. Sarmast says the mountainous island was the tip of the civilization submerged in a devastating earthquake and flood thousands of years ago.
Using deep-sea imagery, simulations of the seabed, and following 50 clues found in Plato’s Critias and Timaeus Dialogues, Sarmast said he has discovered a sunken rectangular land mass stretching northeast from Cyprus, toward Syria.
“Everything matches the descriptions in the dialogues of Atlantis to an uncanny degree,” said Sarmast.
Using scientific data collected a decade ago, Sarmast said he came up with detailed three-dimensional maps and simulated models of the eastern Mediterranean basin.
“We lowered the sea level by 1,600 meters (5,250 feet) and an island popped up,” he said.
Having written a book about his discovery, Sarmast now hopes to organize an expedition to the region for further research.

SCHOLARS SKEPTICAL

His theory has been challenged by archaeologists, who say the Atlantis story is merely a myth.
Sarmast, however, says the sheer volume of detail found in the dialogues is proof enough that something is lurking in the watery deep. “The dialogues read like a treasure map,” he said.

Although theories on where Atlantis was are many and varied, most believers speculate that the ancient city was probably destroyed in a flood of biblical proportions, which has its parallel in the history of the Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Egyptians and South Americans.
Plato describes a series of worldwide floods culminating in the deluge of the Deucalion, dated by Greek historians to the end of the last Ice Age, about 10,000 B.C.
According to those ancient texts, Atlantis was a powerful nation whose residents became so corrupted by greed and power that Zeus, the king of the gods, destroyed it.
Cypriot scholars are skeptical of Sarmast’s conclusions.
“The possibility of Cyprus being Atlantis is next to zero,” said Plato scholar Sofronis Sofroniou.
“Cyprus is mentioned by Homer and other people, and there is no mention of that. If Cyprus was Atlantis, it would probably have been mentioned. There is absolutely no basis for this theory.”

Sophocles Hadjisavvas, director of the Antiquities Department, agrees. “This is mere speculation and has nothing to do with reality,” he said.
“Atlantis is mythology, but even mythology speaks of Atlantis being outside the Gates of Hercules in the Atlantic,” he said, referring to the Straits of Gibraltar.
“But it is good for Cyprus tourism,” he added.
Sarmast won’t be swayed. “Heinrich Schliemann discovered Troy by following clues in Homer’s Iliad,” he said, referring to the German explorer who found what he thought was the ancient city of Troy in 1873. “Before that archaeologists said it was a myth. It wasn’t, and nor is Atlantis.”


© 2003 Reuters Limited.

Possidónio da Silva (1806-1896) e o Elogio da Memória

O arquitecto português Possidónio da Silva (1806-1896) foi uma das personalidades do Portugal de oitocentos que mais pugnou pela implementação de uma política concertada de salvaguarda do património histórico-cultural.

Na verdade, foi a esta verdadeira demanda que consagrou a maior parte da sua vida, fundando a referencial Real Associação dos Architectos Civis e Archeologos Portuguezes, do seio da qual sairiam os principais membros da Commissão dos Monumentos Nacionaes, o primeiro organismo governamental estritamente dedicado a esta temática.

Num século em que a Contemporaneidade ocidental obrigara a uma constante revisão do próprio devir humano, urgia preservar toda uma memória pretensamente nacional, sob pena de se esfumarem os desígnios inerentes ao próprio movimento liberal e neo-iluminista - havia, pois, que promover o inventário, o estudo, a salvaguarda e a ampla divulgação das riquezas históricas, artísticas, arquitectónicas e arqueológicas que sublinhassem as originalidades nacionais, regionais e locais.

A monografia de Ana Cristina Martins Possidónio da Silva (1806-1896) e o Elogio da Memória: Um Percurso na Arqueologia de Oitocentos - uma nova obra a ser lançada no dia 28 de Novembro de 2003, pelas 17 horas, na sede da Associação dos Arqueólogos Portugueses, Largo do Carmo, 4 – 1º Dto., em Lisboa - está essencialmente centrada na personalidade do fundador desta secular instituição e respectivo Museu Arqueológico do Carmo.

É ao longo dos seus três capítulos que nos inteiramos das acções envidadas por Possidónio e seus mais directos correligionários em prol da salvaguarda do património histórico-cultural em pleno século XIX. Plea primeira vez na historiografia nacional, as actividades possidonianas são examinadas de um modo abrangente no âmbito de um permanente exercício de interligação de teorias e práticas desenvolvidas ao longo de quase uma centúria em pleno cenário europeu.

Este é, sobretudo, um trabalho que abre, em definitivo, as portas à relevância e iminência do estudo da História da Arqueologia em Portugal. Como é sublinhado no prefácio, da lavra do Professor Dr. Vítor Oliveira Jorge, ao pôr Possidónio da Silva em livro, disponível para o público, a autora abre uma nova frente, começa a criar uma visibilidade e uma legitimidade para a nossa arqueologia que até agora esta não tinha.

Las cucarachas, los ratones y los piojos

Escrita por Eugenio de Salazar em 1573, a bordo de um galeão espanhol a caminho das Canárias:


(..) mi nave que algunos llaman caballo de palo, y otros rocín de madera, y otros pájaro puerco; aunque yo le llamo pueblo y ciudad, mas no la de Dios que describió el glorioso Augustino.

Tiene un molinete que con su furia mueve los marineros, y con su ruido a los pasajeros; una fuente o dos que se llaman bombas, cuya agua, ni la lengua ni el paladar la quería gustar, ni las narices oler, ni aun los ojos ver, porque sale espumeando como infierno, y hediendo como el diablo.

Hay aposentos tan cerrados, oscuros y olorosos, que parecen bóvedas o carneros de difuntos. Tienen estos aposentos las puertas en el suelo, que se llaman escotillas o escotillones, porque los que que por ellos entran escotan bien el contento, alivio y buen olor que han recebido en los aposentos de la tierra; y por cómo son los aposentos, parecen senos del infierno (si es que no lo son); es cosa cuadrante que las puertas y entradas estén en el suelo, de manera que se entren hundiendo los que allí entraren.

Hay árboles en esta ciudad, no de los que sudan saludables gomas y licores aromáticos, sino de los que corren continuo puerca pez y hediondo sebo. También hay ríos de espesísima suciedad; no llenos de grano de oro como el Cibao y el Tajo, sino de granos de aljófar más que común, de grandes piojos, y tan grandes, que algunos se almadían, y vomitan pedazos de carne de grumetes.

El terreno de este lugar es de tal calidad que cuando llueve está tieso, y cuando los soles son mayores, se enternecen los lodos y se os pegan los pies al suelo, que apenas los podréis levantar. De las cercas adientro tienen grandísima copia de volatería de cucarachas, que allí llaman curianas, y grande abundancia de montería de ratones, que muchos de ellos se aculan y resisten a los monteros como jabalíes (…)

Es esta ciudad triste y oscura; por de fuera negra, por de dentro negrísima, suelos negrales, paredes negrunas, habitadores negrazos y oficiales negretes, y en resolución es tal que desde el bauprés a la contramesana, de la roda al codaste, de los escobenes a la lemera, del espolón al leme, de los estantos de babor hasta los masteleros de estribor, y del un bordo al otro, no hay en ella cosa que buena sea ni bien parezca; mas, en fin, es un mal necesario como la mujer."

apud RÚBIO SERRANO, J. (1991) Arquitectura de las naos y galeones de las flotas de Indias. Malaga: Ediciones Seyer, vol. I.

Judeus ao mar

How could a 73 year old “Jew” go into service at sea, besides taking a boat as a passenger?

Below is the transcript of a 1621 sentence:

The Inquisitors, ordinary, and Deputies of the Holy Inquisition agree That seen these inquiries, guilt, and confessions of Henrique Soares half a new Christian, Graduated in Laws by the University of Coimbra, Lawyer and living in the city of Ponta Delgada of the Island of Sao Miguel of the Bishopry of Angra, Defendant that is presently arrested, it is seen that being a baptized Christian, obliged to, and to believe in everything that the Holy Roman Church has, believes and teaches, he has done the opposite;
and that after the last general pardon moved by the example, and the false doctrine of a certain person of his nation (in Portugal Jews were also referred as “people of the Nation”) he separated from the Holy Catholic faith, and joined the law of Moses believing it and thinking that he could be saved by it and being arrested he confessed these guilts:
he confessed that he had been a Jew, but that he always had Christ Our Lord as the Messiah and the true God, hoping nevertheless that the Messiah promised in the Law would come to the world and free and unite the children of Israel so that they could live in Freedom, and in the wealth of all material goods, and pleasures of the earth, and to have as many wives as they desired, and use them sinless, and as he believed in the Law of Moses, he also observed the Rites of the Holy Mother Church, and that he hold good the Christian Law while he as at the same time far from it:
and that when he was a Jew he went to Church and he did the other works of the Christians with a Christian intent, inserting in his confessions so many other contradictions, and horrors, variations, and revocations, that in the Defendant mind could not be admitted, they were on the contrary clear signs of his impenitence and strong mind so that when he was accused proof of Justice was made to him, and his process was followed in all of its terms until the final conclusion being several times admonished in order for him to tell the truth and come to senses in order for him to be treated with mercy, that he finally did, confessing that when he believed the Law of Moses, he did not believed in Christ Our Lord, nor he had Him as true God and Messiah as promised in the Law, and that he only believed in the God of Heaven as the Jew he was, and that to Him he prayed with the Our Father oration.
And by observing the said Law of Moses he did not ate pork communicating this thing with the people from his Nation wronged on faith, with whom he declared to be Jew and that he did not confessed these guilts because he did not held them as sins, nor did he believed in the confession, and other rites of the Holy Mother Church:
the (said rites) he took , and went to (church) and did the other works of Christians only for obligation:
persisting in his errors until he had done at the Table of the Holly Office his last confession; saying that he did not confess as he should in the beginning, nor during the course of his process (torture must do wonders to renitent defendants...) because we was not very sorrow, nor converted to our holy faith.
And all being seen with everything else that is in the inquiries;
they declare that the Defendant Enrique Soares was an heretic Apostate of our Holy faith, and as such he receives the penalty of grand excommunication, and confiscation of all his estate and goods, reverting to the tax (service) and Royal Chamber, and to the other penalties in Law against the similar established.
But, seeing that when he received the good advice he confessed at the Holy Office his guilts showing signs and evidence of regret, asking mercy and forgiveness with all that is clear from the inquiries, the Defendant Henrique Soares received the gremio and unction of the Holy Mother Church as he asks:
and they command him to abhor in public his heretic errors:
And in penalty and penitence of them they order him into prison, and perpetual penitential habit, and without remission;
in which he will be instructed in the matters of faith necessary for the salvation of his soul:
And the first 3 years of his penitence will be fulfilled in his Majesty’s galleys, serving to the oars without a wage.
And they order that of the said grand excommunication in which he has incurred he be released in ecclesiae format.

Pedro da Silva de S. Payo
Simao Barreto de Menezes
Pedro Cardoso
Dom Joao Pereira

Embarcação do século XIV ou XV descoberta na Ria de Aveiro

Embarcação do Século XIV Ou XV Descoberta na Ria de Aveiro

Por NUNO SOUSA. Público, Terça-feira, 18 de Novembro de 2003

"É tida como a mais antiga embarcação descoberta até hoje na região de Aveiro e foi encontrada no final do passado mês de Outubro. O achado ocorreu na sequência das operações de dragagem da área que delimita os novos terminais de granéis líquidos e de granéis sólidos do porto de Aveiro e é encarado pelos especialistas como "um importante legado das construções nórdicas".

"Ria de Aveiro G" foi o nome escolhido para catalogar mais esta peça arqueológica encontrada na cidade. Trata-se de uma "embarcação de casco trincado, uma construção típica que vem dos países nórdicos e que chega até à actualidade", esclarece o arqueólogo Pedro Ventura, coordenador da equipa que acompanha as obras em curso no porto de Aveiro. Este especialista conta como tudo aconteceu: "Estávamos a fazer dragagens para abrir o futuro cais de terminais sólidos quando a draga tocou numa parte da embarcação, que acabou por se soltar".

A certeza da antiguidade da descoberta em questão chegou dos Estados Unidos. Com o intuito de se proceder à sua datação através de radio-carbono, foram enviadas amostras de madeira pertencentes ao "Ria de Aveiro G" para laboratórios americanos. Os resultados das análises são elucidativos: trata-se de um exemplar datado de entre os séculos XIV e XV, que se destaca pelo seu casco trincado. Uma particularidade que, de acordo com Pedro Ventura, "consiste na sobreposição do tabuado" e que é possível encontrar hoje nos barcos rabelos e em alguns moliceiros.

Atestada a importância do achado, impõe-se agora proceder ao registo e remoção da estrutura. Uma operação que se pode revelar problemática, já que a embarcação está localizada a cerca de nove metros de profundidade, num contexto de fraca visibilidade. "Não conseguimos calcular o tempo que pode demorar. O barco tem uma camada de entre 1.000 a 2.000 metros cúbicos de areia por cima", ilustra o arqueólogo.

Actualmente, a Administração do Porto de Aveiro, em conjunto com os técnicos responsáveis pela obra, a equipa de arqueologia que a acompanha e o Centro Nacional de Arqueologia Náutica e Subaquática estudam a melhor estratégia para solucionar a questão.

Recorde-se que uma descoberta semelhante havia já ocorrido em Guernica, no País Basco, tratando-se de um barco precisamente da mesma época e com o mesmo tipo de casco. Também em Portugal, em 1970, foram encontrados no rio Arade, entre Portimão e Silves, vestígios de uma embarcação de casco trincado, que entretanto se encontra desaparecida."

Sinistro

Sinistro - Sábbado 5 do corrente, pelo meio dia, pouco mais ou menos, aproximou-se deste porto o vapor inglez Runher, de 343 tonelladas, capitão E. Courtenay, com 51 pessoas de tripulação, com carga de víveres, proveniente de Londres, com destino para as Bermudas, trazendo 4 dias de viagem.

Ao entrar no porto, seguindo a toda a força, passou entre os navios ancorados e tomando um bordo bastante à terra encalhou junto ao cáes da alfandega, a bem pouca distancia. O commandante, a cuja imprudencia só se deve tal sinistro, fez esforços para recuar o navio, mas foram baldados. O navio era a primeira viagem que fazia. O commandante precipitou-se, porque se tivesse esperado o pratico, teria fundeado sem perigo algum junto ao outro vapor que se achava no porto. São sempre africanadas que custam caro aos donos dos navios e que podem desacreditar o porto.

O Angrense, 7 de Novembro de 1964

Ship Sheathing

Hereof let others take warning, in no place to have Caske on the shore, where it may be avoyded; for it is one of the provisions, which are with greatest care to be preserved in long Voyages, and hardest to be supplyed. These Arters, or Broma, in all hot Countries enter into the plankes of Shippes, and especially where are Rivers of fresh water; (for the common opinion is, that they are bred in fresh water, and with the current of the Rivers are brought into the Sea) but experience teacheth, that they breed in the great Seas in all hott Clymates, especially neere the Equinocital lyne; for lying so long under and neere the lyne, and towing a Shalop at our stern, comming to clense her in Brasil, we found her all under water covered with these wormes, as bigge as the little finger of a man, on the outside of the planke, not fully covered, but halfe the thickness of their bodie, like to a gelly wrought into the planke as with a Gowdge. And naturall reason (in my judgement) confirmeth this; for creatures bread and nourished in the Sea, comming into fresh water die; as those actually bred in Ponds, or fresh Rivers die presently, if they come into Slat water.

But some man say: this fayleth in some Fishes and Beasts. Which I must confesse to be true; but these eyther are part terrestryall, and part aquatile, as the Mare-maide, Sea-horse, and other of that kind or have their breeding in the fresh, and growth or continual nourishment in the Salt water, as the Salmond, and other of that kinde.

In little time, if the Shippe be not sheathed, they put all in hazzard; for they enter in no bigger then a small Spanish Needle, and by little and little their holes become ordinarily greater then a mans finger. The thicker the planke is, the greater he groweth; yea, I have seene many Shippes so eaten, that the most of their plankes under water have beene like honey combes, and especially those betwixt wind and water.
If they had not beene sheathed, it had bin impossible that they could have swomme. The entring of them is hardly to be discerned, the most being small as the head of a Pinne. Which, all such, as purpose long Voyages, are to prevent by sheathing their Shippes.

And for that I have seene divers manners of sheathing, for the ignorant I will set them downe, which by experience I have found best, Is Spaine, and Portingall, some sheath their Shippes with Lead; which, besides the cost and waight, although they use the thinnest sheet-lead that I have seen in any place, yet it is nothing durable, but subject to many casualties.

Another manner is used with double plankes, as thicke without as within, after the manner of furring; which is little better then that with Lead; for, besides his waight, it dureth little, because the worme in small time passeth through the one and the other.

A third manner of sheathing hath beene used amongst some with fine Canvas; which is of small continuance, and so not to be regarded. The fourth prevention, which now is most accompted of, is to burne the utter planke, till it come to be in every place like a Cole, and after to pitch it; this is not bad.
In Chine (as I have been enformed) they use a certaine Betane or Varnish, in manner of an artificiall pitch, wherewith they trim the outside of their shippes. It is said to be durable, and of that vertue, as neither worme, nor water peirceth it; neither hath the Sunne power against it.

Some have devised a certaine Pitch, mingled with Glasse, and other ingredients, beaten into powder, with which if the Shippe be pitched, it is said, the worme that toucheth it, dyeth; but I have not heard, that it hath beene useful.

But the most approved of all is the manner of sheathing used now adayes in England, with thin bourds, halfe inch thick; the thinner the better; and Elme better then Oake; for it ryeth not, it indureth better under water, and yeeldeth better to the Shippes side.

The invention of the materialles incorporated betwixt the planke and the sheathing, is that indeed which avayleth; for without it many plankes were not sufficient to hinder the entrance of this worme; this manner is thus; before the sheathing board is nayled on, upon the inner side of it they smere it over with tarre halfe a finger thicke, and upon the tarre, another halfe finger thick of hayre, such as the Whitelymers use, and so nayle it on, the nayles not above a spanne distance one from another; the thicker they are driven the better.

Some hold opinion, that the tarre killeth the worme; others, that the worme passing the sheathing, and seeking a way through, the hayre and the tarre so involve him, that he is choked therewith; which me thinkes is most probable; this manner of sheathing was invented by my Father; and experience hath taught it to be the best, and of least cost.


HAWKINS, Richard (1933) The Observations of Sir Richard Hawkins: edited from the text of 1622 with introduction, Notes and Appendices by James A. Williamson. London: The Argonaut Press, pp. 80-82