Boa Vista 1 and Boa Vista 2: first data on two Early Modern ships discovered in Lisbon (Portugal)

Actas del V Congreso Internacional de Arqueología Subacuática (IKUWA V) Cartagena, 2014 Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte Actas del V Congreso Internacional de Arqueología Subacuática Un patrimonio para la humanidad Cartagena, 15-18 de octubre de 2014 Proceedings of the 5th International Congress on Underwater Archaeology A heritage for mankind Cartagena, October 15th-18th, 2014 Akten des 5. Internationalen Kongress für Unterwasserarchäologie Ein Erbe für die Menschheit Cartagena, 15. bis 19. Oktober 2014 Catálogo de publicaciones del Ministerio: www.mecd.gob.es Catálogo general de publicaciones oiciales: publicacionesoiciales.boe.es Edición: 2016 Coordinación (MNAS) Iván Negueruela Martínez Rocío Castillo Belinchón Patricia Recio Sánchez Edición (MNAS) Rocío Castillo Belinchón Abraham Ramírez Pernía Luis Ángel Torres Sobrino Colaboradores (MNAS) Felicidad Arias Fernández Niccolò Bassan Mª José Espín Sáez Félix Ferrero García Juan Jesús Oliver Laso MINISTERIO DE EDUCACIÓN, CULTURA Y DEPORTE © Edita: © SECRETARÍA GENERAL TÉCNICA Subdirección General de Documentación y Publicaciones © De los textos e imágenes: sus autores NIPO: 030-16-446-2 © Boa Vista 1 and Boa Vista 2: first data on two Early Modern ships discovered in Lisbon (Portugal) Boa Vista 1 and Boa Vista 2: first data on two Early Modern ships discovered in Lisbon (Portugal) Boa Vista 1 y Boa Vista 2: primeros datos de dos embarcaciones modernas descubiertas en Lisboa (Portugal) Cristóvão Fonseca Portuguese Centre for Global History (CHAM-FCSH/NOVA | UAç), Lisboa cristovaofonseca@gmail.com José Bettencourt Portuguese Centre for Global History (CHAM-FCSH/NOVA | UAç), Lisboa jbettencourt.cham@gmail.com Alexandre Brazão Portuguese Centre for Global History (CHAM-FCSH/NOVA | UAç), Lisboa Christelle Chouzenoux Portuguese Centre for Global History (CHAM-FCSH/NOVA | UAç), Lisboa Marco Pinto Portuguese Centre for Global History (CHAM-FCSH/NOVA | UAç), Lisboa Tiago Silva Portuguese Centre for Global History (CHAM-FCSH/NOVA | UAç), Lisboa Patrícia Carvalho Portuguese Centre for Global History (CHAM-FCSH/NOVA | UAç), Lisboa Inês Coelho Portuguese Centre for Global History (CHAM-FCSH/NOVA | UAç), Lisboa Jorge Freire Portuguese Centre for Global History (CHAM-FCSH/NOVA | UAç), Lisboa IKUWA V | Págs. 957-967 957 958 Cristóvão Fonseca, José Bettencourt, Alexandre Brazão, Christelle Chouzenoux, Marco Pinto, Tiago Silva… Abstract: Archaeological excavations carried out in the riverside area of Lisbon, revealed the remains of two ships: Boa Vista 1 and 2. The chronological sequence indicates that a 19th century embankment covered a wide anchorage, with archaeological remains ranging from Roman times until the 18th century. The two wooden ships were abandoned or lost in this anchorage, probably sometime between mid-17th and mid-18th centuries. Boa Vista 1 is a small vessel and features «architectural signatures» that are common in the Mediterranean area, but no clear parallels have been published to date. Boa Vista 2 is a larger vessel, and there are also no clear parallels. Both are therefore essential and unique sources to study post-medieval shipbuilding. Assuming the hypothesis that Boa Vista 1 and 2 were built on the Iberian Peninsula or on its colonial territories, they are an important starting point for the review of available sources on the subject. Key words: Portugal, Lisbon, Boa Vista, shipbuilding, post-medieval archaeology. Resumen: Los trabajos arqueológicos llevados a cabo en la zona ribereña de Lisboa, permitieron identiicar los restos de dos barcos: Boa Vista 1 y 2. La secuencia cronológica indica que un terraplén del siglo XIX cubría un extenso fondeadero. En este fondeadero (con uso documentado desde la época romana hasta el siglo XVIII), las dos naves construidas en madera fueron abandonadas o perdidas, probablemente entre mediados del siglo XVII y mediados del XVIII. El barco Boa Vista 1, más pequeño, presenta «irmas arquitectónicas» comunes en la zona del Mediterráneo, pero no existen paralelos claros publicados hasta la fecha. Boa Vista 2, más grande, tampoco encuentra paralelos claros. Ambos son, por tanto, una fuente esencial y única para el estudio de la construcción naval postmedieval. Asumiendo la hipótesis de que fueron construidos en la península ibérica o en su espacio colonial, este es un punto de partida importante para la revisión de las fuentes disponibles sobre el tema. Palabras clave: Portugal, Lisboa, Boa Vista, construcción naval, arqueología postmedieval. Introduction Archaeological monitoring carried out in the construction area of the new corporate Head Ofice of EDP-Energias de Portugal, S.A., located in the riverside area of Lisbon, revealed the remains of two ships, Boa Vista 1 and Boa Vista 2. Both were excavated between September 2012 and February 2013, in a rescue intervention carried out by ERA Archaeology Company, which requested the contribution of the Portuguese Centre for Global History (CHAM) to ensure the necessary expertise in nautical archaeology (Sarrazola/Bettencourt/Teixeira, 2014). Both vessels were recorded in situ by ERA, using rectiied photographs and a total station survey. The remains were then dismantled and transferred, irst to EDP storage facilities and then to a council warehouse (Câmara Municipal de Lisboa), where they are kept immersed in water tanks. In 2013, our team took over the study of the vessels and conducted a four-month assessment of both contexts, including a phase of analysis and systematization of the ield data. A general inventory of all the ship’s timbers and other archaeological inds was compiled. A number of selected timbers that have crucial importance for the vessels interpretation were thoroughly recorded (Bettencourt et alii, 2013). This paper presents some preliminary results of this research. IKUWA V | Págs. 957-967 Boa Vista 1 and Boa Vista 2: first data on two Early Modern ships discovered in Lisbon (Portugal) The context The vessels were found in Lisbon’s riverfront, buried in the former Boavista beach, which had been a submerged zone until the 17th century, according to ancient cartography (Fig. 1). Later written sources still give a picture of a riverine environment, conirming that «faluas» (a traditional boat) often ran aground in the bottom of channels, such as Ferradeiros or Moeda (Araújo, 1938: XIII, 76). From mid-17th century onwards, iconography shows an anchorage and several wharves featuring sheds, docks and warehouses belonging to the «Junta de Comércio do Brasil» (a State merchant Company). This port structure only became truly consolidated in the following century (Caetano, 2004: 111-124). The maritime dimension of this space and its subsequent occupation were recorded during the archaeological monitoring, and an important stratigraphic sequence was uncovered. This included the identiication of a probable anchorage, located at depths between 3 and 6 meters (mean sea level), featuring ceramics ranging from the Roman period to the 18th century, as well as several iron anchors from the Early Modern period. The ship remains were found in this archaeological context. Above these levels of silty sediments, several landills were made by means of pilings, which were the base for the construction of the «Fábrica do Gás» (Gas Plant - 1846-1880-1923), Lisbon’s irst power plant, disabled in the 20th century. This later occupation conditioned the preservation and the archaeological excavation of the two ships. The Boa Vista 1 ship The Boa Vista 1 ship was excavated in two distinct phases, due to the constraints of the engineering works. A 12 meter long section of the ship was preserved, with a north-south orientation (Fig. 2-3). The stern was located in the southern end, starboard side slumped over, still keeping an end portion of the keel, the heel and the sternpost. At the northern end, there was a central section of the ship, which had been cut during earlier construction phases. Component Moulded (cm) Sided (cm) Keel 20 16.5 / 15 Floor-timber 13 / 10 14 / 11 Futtocks 14 / 6 14 / 7.5 Component Width (cm) Thickness (cm) Ceiling-planks or footwales 20 9/5 Hull-planks 39.7 / 4.8 (most between 29 and 20) 5.6 / 4.5 (most around 5) Wooden sheathing 27.5 / 23.8 2.5 / 2 Table 1. Boa Vista 1 – dimensions of timbers. IKUWA V | Págs. 957-967 959 960 Cristóvão Fonseca, José Bettencourt, Alexandre Brazão, Christelle Chouzenoux, Marco Pinto, Tiago Silva… Figure 1. Location of the Boa Vista ships. IKUWA V | Págs. 957-967 Boa Vista 1 and Boa Vista 2: first data on two Early Modern ships discovered in Lisbon (Portugal) Figure 2. Plan of the Boa Vista 1 site, with the scattered timbers. IKUWA V | Págs. 957-967 961 962 Cristóvão Fonseca, José Bettencourt, Alexandre Brazão, Christelle Chouzenoux, Marco Pinto, Tiago Silva… The context was heavily disturbed due to the landill’s pilings, and contaminated by naphtha, used as fuel in the Gas Plant (Fig. 4). Thus, the only elements of the hull that still kept their original arrangement were a part of the keel, the planking and some fragments of the framing. Figure 3. a) General view from west of the Boa Vista 1 stern section. Note the difficult working conditions and the chaos of timbers. b) Coconuts stored in bottom of Boa Vista 2; c) View aft from the bow of Boa Vista 2 ship in the dismantling phase. The stem appears in the first plan. The context was sealed by silted luvial deposits, containing artefacts from the second half of the 17th century or the irst half of the 18th century, such as Dutch kaolin pipes from Gouda, British pipes, onion bottles, probably also of British manufacture, shards of stoneware pots decorated with blue cobalt and produced in the Rhine valley workshops and several shards of Portuguese Faience. With the exception of several pieces of wooden blocks, most of these materials are related to the use of this area as a port. However, they are a chronological indicator for the time of the ship’s wreck or abandonment, which may have occurred between the last quarter of the 17th century and mid-18th century. The analysis of the ship’s hull, a complex task due to its condition, revealed several interesting construction details. The keel was composed of three sections, connected with but joints, without evidence of any scarfs or nailing pattern. These joints feature a full width, horizontal, semi-circular section scarf that would be illed with a water stopper. IKUWA V | Págs. 957-967 Boa Vista 1 and Boa Vista 2: first data on two Early Modern ships discovered in Lisbon (Portugal) This morphology is a rare example, as the only existing parallels in Portugal were found in the 16th century ship from Cais do Sodré (Lisbon; Rodrigues et alii, 2001: 354-357). Nevertheless, it is also described in the 1691 Traité de la Construction des Galères. The transition of the keel to the sternpost with a heel is also interesting. This morphology is similar to the vessels of Iberian-Atlantic tradition. However, it features two distinct characteristics that make it a special case, since it incorporates a very important part of the keel, with a length of 3.47 m, and shows no sternpost knee, which would strengthen the connection of the heel to the keel or to the sternpost. There were no loor timbers in connection above the keel, and the southeast part of the site corresponds to a chaos of timbers, apparently collapsed from the upper works at the starboard side of the vessel, due to site formation processes. However, the observation of the upper surface of the keel shows that the ship was built skeleton-irst. This is indicated by the pattern of fastening holes, showing at least one square iron nail in each loor timber. Some also feature round iron bolts, with round countersinks in the lower surface that may correspond to the connection between keelson, loor timber and keel. The observation of the fragments of the frames, mostly dispersed, conirms a skeleton-irst construction, since it is possible to ind hook-scarfs in the connection between the loor timbers and the futtocks, reinforced with at least two iron bolts, one of them nailed from the futtock to the loor timber. This is a particularly interesting feature, because it has been related to Mediterranean shipbuilding, appearing, for instance, in the Culip VI vessel (Catalonia, mid-14th century), at Yassi Ada (Turkey, 16th century), in the Sardinaux ship (France, late-17th century) or in the Kitten ship (Bulgaria, 19th century) (Rieth, 1998; Joncheray, 1998: 53; Batchvarov, 2009: 85-86). In Portugal, they appear in the 16th century Ria de Aveiro F vessel (Lopes, 2013: 32-35, 47-48). This framing had an inner reinforcement with several footwales, ixed with iron nails. The planking is better preserved than the framing, especially in the northern part of the structure, from keel to starboard. Generally, the hull planks where connected with but joints, nailed to the frames with square iron nails, which had round countersinks in the outer face. One plank is notched to it under the frames, a feature that again has parallels in Mediterranean vessels, like the medieval ships Culip VI and Sorres X, excavated in Catalonia, and on the Mortella III (16th century) and Sardinaux ships (17th century), in France. It is also referred in the Traité de la Construction des Galéres (Cazenave de la Roche, 2011; Pujol, 1992: 36). There are no treenails in the hull planking. The hull has the particularity of being protected by a wooden sheathing of lesser thickness than the planking. The wooden sheathing was attached to the keel with small iron nails, placed near the edges of the planks. Between this external planking and the ship hull there was a coat of still unidentiied animal hair. Wooden plugs that may have been used to provisionally ix the planks were also recorded during disassembly. The Boa Vista 2 ship The structure of the Boa Vista 2 vessel was much more impressive lying preserved up to a length of 16 m, corresponding to a portion of the bow, also north-south oriented (Fig. 5-6). IKUWA V | Págs. 957-967 963 964 Cristóvão Fonseca, José Bettencourt, Alexandre Brazão, Christelle Chouzenoux, Marco Pinto, Tiago Silva… Figure 4. Plan of the Boa Vista 2 site, with the scattered timbers. IKUWA V | Págs. 957-967 Boa Vista 1 and Boa Vista 2: first data on two Early Modern ships discovered in Lisbon (Portugal) Component Moulded (cm) Sided (cm) Keel 26 / 22 22 Floor-timber 25 / 19 25 / 19 Futtocks 20 / 16 20 / 15 Component Width (cm) Thickness (cm) Ceiling-planks or footwales Just one timber - >26 Just one timber - 6 / 4.3 Hull-planks 43 / 5.4 (most between 27 and 19) 7.2 / 5 (most around 6.3) Wooden sheathing Most between 30 and 25 Most between 4 and 3 Table 2. Boa Vista 2 – dimensions of timbers. The ship was preserved along the port side, even though keel remains only existed close to the stem. As in Boa Vista 1, the loor timbers were badly preserved, only a few frames on the bow and some fragmented futtocks along the hull appearing in connection. Among the archaeological inds recorded and associated with this vessel there were several coconuts, stored at its bottom (Fig. 4b), and ballast stones over the frames. However, like Boa Vista 1, the Boa Vista 2 ship was also sealed by luvial sediments, containing artefacts dating mainly from the second half of the 17th century and the irst half of the 18th century. Some examples are the Dutch or English kaolin pipes and several shards of Portuguese Faience. The Boa Vista 2 hull is different from Boa Vista 1. The keel consists of two overlapped segments which were connected by a lat horizontal scarf, reinforced with two square iron nails and two treenails at each edge. At the northern end, the keel ends at the beginning of the composite stem, made from a curved timber, called «couce» (Fig. 4c). This piece has two very interesting features. Firstly, the upper piece of the stem shows a double rabbet. Secondly, it shows several engraved construction marks, which should be related to the construction of this part of the hull: the irst is an incised line parallel to the baseline of the keel, which should correspond to the beginning of a double rabbet; the second may be related to the curved proile projection of the stempost. Like the Boa Vista 1 vessel, nearly all the frames were displaced and shattered, which complicates their analysis and interpretation. However, we could observe that some of them are tabbed to be ixed in the notched rising wood, as indicated by the concretions of the square iron nails connecting the loor timber to the keel. The loor timbers and futtocks of the central part of the ship where connected with lat horizontal scarfs, ixed with square iron nails. In other two futtocks, one of the joints has a scarf with a thickening along the lower edge and is also ixed with iron nails, although in one case the presence of a treenail was detected. Therefore, it is probably another skeleton-irst vessel. The hull has been reinforced by footwales in the loor timber/futtock overlapping area; they were considerably deteriorated and fragmented. The presence of square holes on the upper surface of the futtocks or on the displaced loor timbers may also be an evidence for the use of a ceiling planking on the bottom of the vessel, which was not preserved. IKUWA V | Págs. 957-967 965 966 Cristóvão Fonseca, José Bettencourt, Alexandre Brazão, Christelle Chouzenoux, Marco Pinto, Tiago Silva… The hull planks were better preserved than the framing, particularly on the port side. They were connected with but joints, although there were also some horizontal scarfs. These planks were ixed to the loor timbers by square iron nails in the lower face while the outer face had round, previously opened countersinks. The caulking between the planks and also on the rabbet was composed of a ibrous material not yet identiied, in some cases reinforced by lead straps. This is a technical solution documented since the 16th century, particularly in sealing the joints of the planking of ships like Boudeuse Cay (Blake, 1986) and Nossa Senhora dos Mártires (Castro, 2005), both from the Portuguese India Run. The hull was still protected by a wooden sheathing ixed with square iron nails embedded in round countersinks. Unlike the standard fastening of the wooden sheathing of the Boa Vista 1 vessel, no signiicant difference was noted between this sheathing and the system for ixing the hull planking, where iron nails of similar dimension were used. This wooden sheathing overlapped a protective coating made of a whitish past that might correspond to «gala-gala», a mixture of ish oil and chalk used for the protection of the hull, known in Portugal at least since the 16th century, according to Fernando Oliveira (Oliveira, 1991: 117-198) but never found until now. In some cases, this paste may have also been used for minor repairs, appearing in small patches or in the illing areas attacked by shipworms. Concluding remarks The rather poor preservation of both contexts conditioned the intervention and interpretation, deferring the systematic recording of the ship’s hull and its cultural integration to the laboratory analysis phase. The inds associated to the sedimentary levels that covered the ships’ remains (kaolin pipes, pottery and glass) allow us to date the two ships to the transition between the 17th and the 18th centuries. But the nature of those deposits doesn’t allow for a determination of the origin of the contexts –abandonment or sinking– although both vessels were covered by what had been a submerged environment until the 19th century. The same dificulties related to the formation and dating of these contexts are again found as one attempt to assign the ships to a shipbuilding tradition. Note, however, that Boa Vista 1, a medium sized ship, features some «architectural signatures» common in the Mediterranean area, though there are no clear parallels in the currently available bibliography. Likewise, no analogies could be found in the available literature for the larger Boa Vista 2 either. Both are therefore essential and unique sources for the study of post-medieval shipbuilding. Assuming the hypothesis that both correspond to ships constructed on the Iberian Peninsula or its colonial territories, they are a unique source and an important starting point for the review of available sources on the subject, scarcely treated by Iberian historiography and archaeology. References ARAÚJO, N. DE (1938): Peregrinações em Lisboa. Livro XIII. Lisboa, Parceria A. M Pereira Editora. BATCHVAROV, N. B. (2009): The Kitten Shipwreck: Archaeology and Reconstruction of a Black Sea Merchantman. Texas A&M University, Doctoral Dissertation. IKUWA V | Págs. 957-967 Boa Vista 1 and Boa Vista 2: first data on two Early Modern ships discovered in Lisbon (Portugal) BETTENCOURT, J. et alii (2013): Relatório do registo e avaliação dos navios Boavista 1 e Boavista 2, descobertos durante a construção da Nova Sede Corporativa do Grupo Edp (Avenida 24 de Julho, Lisboa). Lisboa, CHAM. BLAKE, W., and GREEN, J. (1986): «A mid-XVI century Portuguese wreck in the Seychelles». 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