Logboat Excavation
In September 2003 the logboat which had been discovered by local enthusiasts John Cross and Arthur Mack, was excavated and raised. This was made possible thanks to a donation from John and Jane Bingeman of money that Jane had been left by her Godmother Betty Silverwood Lamb. Prior to the excavation, only one end of the logboat had been glimpsed and recorded. A radiocarbon date of AD500 (plus or minus 100 years) was obtained.
The logboat as found with a marker post
It was apparent that the boat was in several pieces due to fractures in the timber caused by time and tide. The excavation also revealed that the buried end of the boat was not intact, potentially due to tidal erosion.
The logboat prior to its raising
You can watch a short video of the loagboat being excavated below.
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Sampling of sediments and recording of the boat in situ were carried out before it was removed. Lifting the boat revealed interesting environmental evidence. An area of grass or reeds had been trapped beneath it, while further wooden elements lay under the bow. Samples were taken to gain information on the palaeoenvironment in which the logboat was used and abandoned.
Each piece of the logboat was carefully raised
Following excavation work to clean and draw the pieces of the logboat continued. Nigel Nayling, University of Lampeter, studied the boat for aspects of wood technology. He determined that the tree used was a fast grown oak and that it was a poor specimen due to the high number of knots. The wooden pieces from under the boat were also inspected. Some may have been worked, in particular a piece recovered from higher up the river bank may have been a mooring stake. A dendrochronological date for the boat was not possible as there were not enough rings present in the wood for a good sample to be taken. A second radio carbon was acquired instead which confirmed the original date.
The logboat and associated wooden pieces were then taken to the Mary Rose Trust for conservation, while work on the assessment and analysis of the excavation archive has continued. The results of the work will be published in 2011.