Roll out the Guns...

The excitement here never ends.
It is Week 5 of my urgent task to renovate the exhibit "Skepp i Strid" (Ship in Battle). Now it is time to select the particular artifacts that will be displayed and perform the necessary conservation work to prepare them for installation, now a mere two months away.
First on the list; one of Vasa's 62 gun carriages.

The centerpiece of "Skepp i Strid" is to be one of the three remaining 24-pounder bronze cannon on an origianl carriage--the poundage refers to the cannonball. The cannon barrel weighs 1.5 tons (fear not, the barrel will be supported by a steel armature, not the aged carriage).

The carriages, or 'levetter' as they are known in Swedish, are truly impressive artifacts. Made of enormous slabs of solid wood, they have a sturdy, solid appearance rivaled only by Vasa's fortress-like hull. Their squat, bulldogish form instills an understanding of the enormous strain borne by these carriages--the 1.5 ton barrel and the violent recoil when it was fired.

Even the solid wooden wheels denote the power cradled in these carriages--and demonstrate why the unfortunate sailor pinned under one of them when the Vasa heeled over never managed to escape. His skeleton, found beneath the cannon wheel, still wrapped in his leather and wool clothing, now lies repose in the Shiphall.

On closer inspection of the carriage, it is possible to see through the waxy layers of protective PEG (polyethalineglycol) to the fascinating patterns eroded into the wood by the incessant, slow sand-blasting of the currents during the 333 years on the harbor bottom.
My next job will be to move from Fred Hocker's office to Emma Hocker's office in the Conservation Lab and begin 'cleaning up' the PEG on carriage 'Nummer 04219'. It is a tedious process of smoothing out the lumps of whitened PEG with a damp cloth. In the end, the polished PEG will have the same ominous dark color as the rest of the ship.

One of the exciting parts of choosing a carriage is the fact that all the assembled carriages are all stored underneath the Vasa. This shot shows the Vasa's keel and lower planking as well as the steel cradle suporting the ship. The blue hoses pump climate-controlled air into the ship's hold to prevent molding (Don't worry, Vasamuseet did not cut the holes, that was an ethically questionable decision made by the excavation team to drain the mud and water out).