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The Dover Bronze Age boat is one of fewer than 20
Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
boats so far found in Britain. It dates to 1575–1520 BC, which may make it one of the oldest substantially intact ''boat'' in the world (older boat finds are small fragments, some less than a metre square) – though much older ships exist, such as the
Khufu ship The Khufu ship is an intact full-size solar barque from ancient Egypt. It was sealed into a pit at the foot of the Great Pyramid of pharaoh Khufu around 2500 BC, during the Fourth Dynasty of the ancient Egyptian Old Kingdom. Like other buried ...
from 2500 BC. The boat was made using oak planks sewn together with yew lashings. This technique has a long tradition of use in British prehistory; the oldest known examples are the narrower
Ferriby boats The Ferriby Boats are three Bronze-Age British sewn plank-built boats, parts of which were discovered at North Ferriby in the East Riding of the English county of Yorkshire. Only a small number of boats of a similar period have been found ...
from east Yorkshire. A 9.5m long section of the boat is on display at
Dover Museum Dover Museum is a museum in Dover, Kent, in south-east England. History Founded in February 1836 by the town's mayor Edward Pett Thompson, it was initially housed in the old Guildhall and run by the Dover Philosophical Institute. The Town Co ...
, in the south-east corner of the United Kingdom.


Discovery and excavation

On 28 September 1992, construction workers from Norwest Holst (who were building the new A20 road link between
Folkestone Folkestone ( ) is a port town on the English Channel, in Kent, south-east England. The town lies on the southern edge of the North Downs at a valley between two cliffs. It was an important harbour and shipping port for most of the 19th and 20t ...
and
Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...
), working alongside archaeologists from the
Canterbury Archaeological Trust Canterbury Archaeological Trust (CAT) is an independent charity formed in 1975 to undertake rescue excavation, research, publication and the presentation of the results of its work for the benefit of the public. The Trust's main activities are ...
, uncovered what remained of a large prehistoric boat thought to be 3,500 years old. This would place its origin around 1500 BC, in the Middle Bronze Age in England. The boat was buried under a road and the burial site stretched out towards buildings. It was decided that it would be too dangerous to dig too near the buildings, so an unknown length of the boat has had to be left under the ground. Previous attempts to remove such boats whole have been unsuccessful, so it was decided to cut the boat into sections and remove it and reassemble it afterwards. After nearly a month of excavation 9.5 metres of the boat was eventually recovered. Depending on different views of the true size of the complete boat, this 9.5 metres could be up to two thirds of the full size of the boat.


Oldest sea-going boat?

The
River Dour The River Dour is a chalk stream in the county of Kent, England. It flows from the villages of Temple Ewell and River between which is a neighbourhood served by a railway station, Kearsney. It is roughly long. It originally had a wide estua ...
leads straight into the
English Channel The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...
, so speculation has been made ever since its discovery about whether the Dover boat went to sea and sailed to the Continent. There is plenty of evidence that there was cross-Channel communication, but it is not known what kind of boats actually sailed across. Keith Miller, a regional archaeologist told the BBC that the older
Ferriby boats The Ferriby Boats are three Bronze-Age British sewn plank-built boats, parts of which were discovered at North Ferriby in the East Riding of the English county of Yorkshire. Only a small number of boats of a similar period have been found ...
would have been used to cross the North Sea and certainly the Ferriby Heritage Trust describe Ferriby Boat 3 as Europe's first known seacraft. The BBC television programme ''Operation Stonehenge: What Lies Beneath Pt 2'', broadcast on BBC Two in September 2014, describes the Ferriby boat as seagoing and describes the tons of cargo it could have taken across the Channel. However, Dover Museum consider that the Dover Bronze Age Boat is the oldest seagoing boat known, at only 1550 BC. They are backed by a different channel and programme from the BBC-
Neil Oliver Neil Oliver (born 21 February 1967) is a British television presenter, archaeologist, historian and author. He has presented several documentary series on archaeology and history, including ''A History of Scotland'', ''Vikings'', and ''Coast'' ...
in the Bronze Age episode of ''A History of Ancient Britain''. They are also backed by a '' Time Team Special'', broadcast on 7 September 2014 on UK Channel 4, which stated that to be a proper sea-going, cross-channel vessel the boat would have to have the curved 'rocker' bottom and the (unproven) pointed bow that only the more modern Dover boat allegedly possesses. Confusingly, the Oakleaf reproduction of the Ferriby boats was given a pointed bow and the Ferriby boats are described by the museum that houses them as having curved rocker bottoms, which sounds much the same as the Dover boat.


Composition

Little is yet known about the boat in use as few clues were left with it. According to ''A History of Ancient Britain'', the boat was laid to rest, still in good condition, in a smaller channel off the Dour river and the yew stitches were deliberately cut, leaving it unusable. It was preserved by being covered quickly in silt. As part of the boat remains underground and there is no proof of the boat's overall shape and size, much speculation as to its total length and its shape has been made. The museum shows suggestions, but the boat could easily be little more than has been removed from the ground, or perhaps many metres longer. The width of the boat is significant, being around 2 metres wide it is much wider than dugout canoes of the time and can easily seat two people next to each other. It is wider than the Ferriby boats, for example. The boat was constructed of oak planks, stitched together with yew withies and also fixed together with wooden wedges. This makes it similar to the Ferriby boats, which are also stitched planks. It is, however, quite different from the
Must Farm Part of a Bronze Age settlement was uncovered at Must Farm quarry, at Whittlesey, near Peterborough, in Cambridgeshire, England. The site has been described as "Britain's Pompeii" due to its relatively good condition, including the "best-preser ...
dugouts, which are not only dug out of one trunk, but the smaller, lightweight ones are made of lighter linden trunks.


Conservation and re-assembly

Whilst in the ground the boat was significantly protected from being destroyed by waterlogging and a cover of silt which protected it from bacteria. After being removed from the ground the boat was kept in a waterlogged state at the
Mary Rose Trust The Mary Rose Trust is a limited charitable trust based in Portsmouth in the United Kingdom. Its primary aims are to preserve, display and spread knowledge about the 16th century warship ''Mary Rose'' which sank in the Solent on 19 July 1545 ...
at
Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...
. After a long process of preservation the boat returned to
Dover Museum Dover Museum is a museum in Dover, Kent, in south-east England. History Founded in February 1836 by the town's mayor Edward Pett Thompson, it was initially housed in the old Guildhall and run by the Dover Philosophical Institute. The Town Co ...
to be re-assembled in 1998. The boat is displayed in a glass case as the centrepiece of a whole floor in the museum devoted to archaeology. With the boat itself is a modern reconstruction of a section of the boat, to assist in the visitors interpretation of the boat itself. The display won an award in 2000 for archaeological display.


Reconstructions

First, a full-size three-metre section of the boat was built, experimenting with techniques etc. This is also housed in the Dover Museum with the original.


The Ole Crumlin-Pederson

Then a half-size reconstruction of the Dover Boat was completed in Dover in 2012; however, due to time constraints it was assembled using modern silicone caulking materials and stitched with modern ropes. Hopes to launch it at the time failed when the boat immediately shipped a lot of water, but the boat has nevertheless been touring around the Channel area in different countries. The boat, initially named BC 1550 has since been officially named after one of its builders, Ole Crumlin-Pederson. The boat was later dismantled and reassembled using Bronze Age materials consisting of moss mixed with animal fat as caulking, and was stitched together with yew lashings. It has now been sailed out from Dover Harbour and was filmed for a Time Team Special for the UK Channel 4. An almost full-size reconstruction of a sewn plank boat was created in the
National Maritime Museum Cornwall The National Maritime Museum, Cornwall is located in a harbourside building at Falmouth in Cornwall, England. The building was designed by architect M. J. Long, following an architectural design competition managed by RIBA Competitions. The ...
in 2012-13, launched in March 2013 and sailed round Falmouth Harbour.


References

* Clark, P. 2004. ''The Dover Bronze Age Boat''. Swindon: English Heritage.


External links


Dover Museum's website about the discovery, excavation, preservation and display of the boat


{{Oldest surviving ships (pre-1919) Ancient boats Bronze Age England Ships preserved in museums History of Dover, Kent