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Palmwood shipwreck

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The silk dress from the Palmwood wreck
Another view of the silk dress

The Palmwood is the name used for a shipwreck off the coast of the Dutch island of Texel in the Wadden Sea.

Artifacts recovered from the wreck include two unique examples of 17th-century clothing, one a satin silk damask dress such as would have been worn by the very wealthy for everyday occasions and the other a silk and silver wedding dress. Both dresses, along with other artifacts found in the wreck, are on display at the Kaap Skil [nl] museum in Texel.

Ship and voyage

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The ship, whose name is unknown, is believed to have voyaged in the 17th century,[1] around 1650[2] or 1660.[3] It sank off the eastern coast of Texel sometime after 1636.[1]

It has been proposed the ship is one of a fleet of twelve which was lost on a crossing from Dover to Hellevoetsluis in 1642 and may have been part of the ostensible transport of a royal bride to join her new husband in the Netherlands but camouflaging a diplomatic mission.[4] The Kaap Skil museum, however, which houses the artifacts, believes the ship was likely a Dutch merchant vessel.[5]

Discovery

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The shipwreck was discovered by Dutch divers, members of a local amateur dive club, in 2009, and more artifacts were recovered from it in 2014.[1] The wreck site is called Burgzand Noord 17.[1] The ship itself, whose name is unknown, has variously been called the palmwood ship and the boxwood ship because of unusual woods found in the remains.[1][2]

The wreck is at a depth which provides an environment that inhibits the decomposition of animal and insect matter such as leather and silk. Plant matter materials such as book pages and cotton garments decompose.[1]

Artifacts

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Among the artifacts recovered in 2014 are two dresses believed to have been made around 1620 and to have been about 30 years old at the time of the shipwreck.[2] They were found in a chest packed together, along with other items such as stockings, a bodice, a velvet robe, and a toiletry set.[3] One of the dresses is satin silk damask and the other, the so-called silver dress, is silk interwoven with strands of silver and believed to be a wedding dress.[3]

The silk dress is largely intact and is "unique" as a remaining artifact of 17th-century clothing textiles, according to textile restorer Emmy de Groot.[6] It consists of a bodice, full skirt with pleats, and sleeves with ruffles.[3] It is typical of dresses of the 1620s to 1630s in Western Europe and is believed to be an everyday dress.[3]

The silver dress in its display case

The silver dress is also a "unique" example, according to Maarten van Bommell of the University of Amsterdam;[6] according to van Bommell the two dresses may represent the only "two such dresses in the whole world".[3] The silver dress was in approximately ten fragments but eventually pieced together.[6] The silver dress in particular would have been extremely expensive at the time of its making and so is believed to have been likely created for a member of the nobility or of a wealthy merchant family.[6] A book cover found with other artifacts is embossed with the coat-of-arms of Charles I, which supports the theory the owner was a member of nobility, perhaps of the House of Stuart.[7]

In 2016 Nadine Akkerman and another Dutch historian proposed that the owner of the dresses was Jean Kerr, Countess of Roxburghe, who was a lady-in-waiting to Henrietta Maria, Charles I's Queen.[4], although this suggestion was withdrawn as soon as further information about the site of the wreck was released.

According to Archeology, the artifacts recovered by 2018 include a "stunning collection of silk garments and velvet textiles, leather book covers, and pottery [representing] the richest cargo of seventeenth-century luxury goods ever found underwater."[1] Artifacts include items associated with the Mediterranean and Indian subcontinent.[1] Because many of the artifacts were recovered boxed together, the find also represents an unusual opportunity to study the possessions of a contemporary collection of objects perhaps owned by a single person or family unit.[6]

Exhibits and media coverage

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The artifacts recovered have been on display at the Kaap Skil museum in oxygen-free display cases since November 2022 and are the subject of a podcast, The Dress and the Shipwreck, and a documentary planned in 2023.[2][6][8]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h "Global Cargo - Archaeology Magazine". Archeology. Archived from the original on 17 March 2023. Retrieved 17 March 2023.
  2. ^ a b c d Moses, Claire (14 March 2023). "This Dress Survived for More Than Three Centuries at the Bottom of the Sea". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 17 March 2023. Retrieved 17 March 2023.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Strickland, Ashley (17 February 2023). "Stunning silver wedding dress recovered from 17th century shipwreck". CNN. Archived from the original on 17 March 2023. Retrieved 17 March 2023.
  4. ^ a b Darroch, Gordon (21 April 2016). "400-year-old dress found in shipwreck sheds light on plot to pawn crown jewels". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 6 December 2017. Retrieved 17 March 2023.
  5. ^ "Het Palmhoutwrak". Museum Kaap Skil (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 10 January 2023. Retrieved 17 March 2023.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Vier eeuwen op de zeebodem, de jurken uit het Palmhoutwrak I Museum Kaap Skil, archived from the original on 17 March 2023, retrieved 17 March 2023
  7. ^ Lewis, Danny (20 April 2016). "Dutch Divers Found a 17th-Century Dress Buried Under the Sea". Smithsonian Magazine. Archived from the original on 19 December 2022. Retrieved 17 March 2023.
  8. ^ "Tentoonstelling Palmhoutwrak in Museum Kaap Skil feestelijk geopend - Provincie Noord-Holland". www.noord-holland.nl (in Dutch). 11 November 2022. Archived from the original on 28 November 2022. Retrieved 17 March 2023.

Further reading

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Janet Dickinson (2023) Drowned books and ghost books. Making sense of the finds from a seventeenth-century shipwreck off the Dutch island of Texel, The Seventeenth Century, 38:1, 49-85, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0268117X.2022.2123847?scroll=top&needAccess=true
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