A bedtime story and the beginning of my work for the next four months...

It was a warm summer’s day on August 10^th 1628 when a man known only to history as Filipe pensively walked across the weather deck of Sweden’s newest and largest warship Vasa moored at Stadsholmen in Stockholm Harbor.  It was not for the weather or settling in that Filipe had his mind with this day.  He like the new ships crew of 133 men had largely been onboard for months packing and provisioning the ship (Cederlund et al. 2006, 52-54).  What worried Filipe was the stability tests of this new vessel had been anything but favorable, and as it was his duty as helmsman to navigate the ship through the harbor and then to open water under the direction of the officers (Sveriges Krig 1937, 46-51).  As helmsman he was not only responsible for sailing the ship, but also navigation on the Baltic, knowing the sheets of each sail and watching them from his vantage point in the steerage (Cederlund et al. 2006, 17-19 and 320-324).  Filipe was not in steerage now, it was about noon and two of the crew were having an argument; the profosser and the master gunner were at each others throats again (Cederlund et al. 2006, 52-54).  This time it was over the determination of the hour on the sunny day by each of their imported Nuremberg diptych sundials to call the noon hour (Vasa artefact number’s 4971, 1973, and 9777; Gouk 1988, 7-23).  Their argument ended with laughter after the bells of both Riddarholm Kyrkan and Sankt Nikolai Kyrkan rang out six bells of the canonical hours to call the noon based upon the pias observations of those clergymen onshore (Lundin and Strindberg, 1882; Liisberg 1905).  Filipe reminded himself that such arguments would cease between these two men once they picked up the marines down the cost and proceeded towards the Polish front (Sveriges Krig 1937, 180-183 and 199-205).  He also reminded himself that this would not be a pleasure cruise and the risks were great, Solen had been lost so recently just the year before (Sveriges Krig 1937, 171-177).

Two things gave him a measure of comfort though as he walked across the weather deck by railing and looked over the newly cast armament of his new home, the 46 brand new 24 pounders made a male chauvinistic impression pridefully, as he walked to his post in steerage (Cederlund et al 2006, 50-54; KA AR 1628, 37).  This guns had been run out so that a fairwell salute could be fired as they left the city (Cederlund et al. 2006, 53-54; RA RR 1628, 667).  As he climbed down the ladder into steerage just forward the great cabin, the other reassurance came to mind as he heard and felt the weight of coins in his breeches pocket, the few newly minted copper coins (Cederlund et al. 2006, 16-18 and 320-323; Stolt, Wallin, and Hocker: Vasa Plan 2).  He was after all getting paid.  Filipe would have much rather stayed on the weather deck, but the tolling of the six bells marked and important part of his job, the turning of the hourglasses (Sveriges Krig 1937, 12-24 and 46-51; Vasa artefact number’s 1150, 1136, 1235, 14105 and 14570).  As he walked across the steerage floor to his post he looked up through the break in the paneling of the poop deck which allowed him to sea the men preparing to bend four sheets on the masts and then up at the godly painted cherubs and other wall carvings (Cederlund et al. 2006, 321; RA AR 1628, 667).  Looking down at a boxlike structure, he reached and opened the glass and lead caned lid to the ships binnacle, and turned over the three hourglasses (Cederlund et al. 2006, 321-322; Vivielle 1977, 8-10; Waters 1955, 157-169).  As he did so he could hear two strange noises behind him; two distinct clicking sounds, both of which staccatic in rhythm.  He knew these where the two mechanical clocks owned by the admiral and the captian (Vasa artefact number’s B252, 6655, 6662, 7727, 7487, 16128, 10567, 6279, 16427, 14894, 7204, 7818, and 11700).

            The gothic table clock in the great cabin was a thing which this man had become used to, iron and wood framed they where common in noble households during the preceeding two centuries.  The other sound he new was different, a much faster beat, and then he heard a small bell chime out twelve bells (Liisberg 1905; Astrand 1980).  This German clock was different than the Dutch gothic wall clock in that it kept better time, so much so that Filipe wasn’t going to be able to flip over the hourglasses early to shorten his watch as he had done so often in the past (Waters 1955, 157-169; Vivielle 1977, 8).  Filipe sat down on one of the folding benches and waited till the lines were cast of from Stadsholmen, and continued to turn over the sandglasses every half hour till his watch was almost over to turn over his job to the second helmsmen.  Moving the ship through the Swedish archipelago would be an exhausting job with near continuous vigilance (Sveriges Krig 1937, 46-84).  Little did he know that in less than one turning of his sandglass something very bad was going to happen to him and his ship.  His bones would be found half a score of the devils number of years later (Cederlund et al. 2006, 323-324).

The above is a work of historical fiction, but I have framed my introduction this way for a very specific reason.  The goal of Historical Archaeology is not to tell us the things we already know which is the task of historians, but the things which never were recorded. We tell stories about the past through the interpretation of its artefacts to enhance the picture created by many other disciplines about our past. Stories which are after all interpretations, but without which are discipline would be devoid of human value. Even the science based "New Archaeology" had at its core these principles. My introduction is an interpretation of what we know historically, the artifacts which are present, and environment that the crew of the Vasa lived and would have sailed on to enable the reader to engage the "small things forgotten" and think critically about what time meant 400 years ago on the ships of the early modern navies of western Europe.  Time is a concept we take for granted in our everyday lives.  In a modern world where it is no great feat to look at our cell phones or computer screens it is hard to imagine that just 400 years ago men and women had to tell time by observing their surroundings or being told by a directing authority.  It was hard enough to tell the time on land during Vasa’s  period, doing so at sea was even harder.  It was under these conditions that the Swedish warship Vasa was constructed and launched and preparing to sail into battle on the 10^th of August 1628.  Because this ship sank while on its maiden voyage with only the administrators, mariners, and a few special guests; it presents a unique archaeological chance to examine the use and perception of time in a pre-industrial western culture.