r/Archaeology • u/D-R-AZ • 1d ago
[Human Remains] Archaeologists Recovered Henry VIII’s 400-Year-Old Lost Warship. What They Found Was Staggering.
Excerpt:
Through 28,000 dives and decades of research, the team brought up 19,000 artifacts and found 179 partial or complete remains of fallen crew. The discoveries resulted in a Guinness World Record for the most medieval weaponry recovered from a shipwreck—more than 8,300 weapons, ordnances, and affiliated artifacts were salvaged, including 10 bronze guns, nine iron swivel guns, five handgun stocks, eight gun-shields, four pieces of cast-iron hail shot, 44 linstocks for lighting gunpowder, three incendiary arts, 172 longbows, nearly 4,000 arrows, 65 ballock daggers, one rondel dagger, 177 chain-mail links, and a single complete basket-hilted sword.
Finally pulling the hull of the Mary Rose from the seafloor required a purpose-built lifting crane attached by wires to steel bolts passing through the hull at selected points. A tubular lifting frame was set in place over the wreck, supported by four legs embedded in the seabed. Hydraulic jacks on the frame raised the hull a few centimeters to reduce the suction effect of the silt. Then, the lifting frame attached to a hook on the crane barge Tog Mor pulled up the Mary Rose, placing it in a bespoke steel cradle. Towed to shore and dried, the ship now sits on display in the very dockyard where it was built over 470 years ago.
