Ship-representations from the past form a source-group of particular significance in maritime archaeology. Medieval churches are among the most important places where such pictures are to be found. In Norway there is a rich material consisting of ship-graffiti in the wooden churches1, and a book was recently published about incised ship-representations in the Gotland churches2.
In the National Museum's Institute of Maritime Archaeology we keep a running collection of information on ship-representations. Often new finds are the result of restoration-work in churches, when covered mural paintings are exposed, or when plaster is removed from walls and reveals motifs incised or scratched in the building-stone.
An example of this is the ship from Voldby Church in Djursland which came to light in June 1994 when Robert Smalley, the conservator, uncovered the old plaster-layer in the tower-room (fig. 1). This revealed a three-masted ship, painted with simple sketch-like lines and with the same colouring as the formal mural decoration, which is from about 1520.
Kalkmaleri fra Voldby kirke på Djursland fra omkring 1520.
The ship has a stern-rudder and low castles fore and aft. All three masts have topmasts, and there are also shrouds and stays. On the shroud of the foremost mast the ratlines are marked. The bow of the ship is deep and strongly curved, and the stern is overhanging. The ship-type is similar to the early caravel of that time.
This new picture in Voldby Church is particularly interesting because it is not the only ship-picture at this site. In the formal mural decoration of the church there is also a ship which has been known for a long time, since it came to light in an earlier restoration (fig.2). It is an impressive three-masted ship with many details, basically of the same type as the more modest version in the tower, but with a conspicuously commanding appearance. King Hans (1481-1513) was the first North European monarch to build ships purely for use in war, and this ship could perhaps be one of them? One could well imagine that the newly-found ship served as a sketch for the formal picture on the church vault. In any case the sketchy one is by far the more realistic.
Ship representations are often used today as vignettes or 'authentic' illustrations of history texts; but they are also often of value as important archaeological source-materials with regard to construction-details, especially for rigging and sails, which of course are not usually preserved with the other archaeological evidence. The role of the ship in societies of the past is a subject covered in the National Museum's new publication "The Ship as Symbol in Prehistoric and Medieval Scandinavia"3.
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