current archaeology

Diary

No. 85 Vol. VIII No. 2 Published December 1982 Edited by Andrew & Wendy Selkirk, 9 Nassington Road, London NW3 2TX, Tel. 01-435 7517

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The Mary Rose comes up trumps

T HE archaeological event of 1982 was without doubt the raising of the Mary Rose. The lifting of the Tudor warship from the seabed took place before the delighted gaze of millions of television viewers on 11th October 1982. This proved to be a splendid television event, complete with thrills and spills, but one which in the best traditions of television events turned out to be all right on the night. Eventually the Mary Rose was brought successfully home to Portsmouth, which she had left on that fateful day 400 years ago, when she went down on 19th July, 1545.

The interesting point about the whole project is that it was an independent project, that is it was not one sponsored by the Government. This in itself gave a somewhat old fashioned air to the proceedings, recalling the days before the upsurge of Government spending in the 1970s: there was none of the neat command structure that is possible when all the funds come from one source, but instead Alexander McKee who discovered the wreck, and Margaret Rule, the archaeological director, must share the credit with the fund raisers and all the other staff members. But in some ways the project turned the conventional wisdom on its head, for we have become used in recent years to thinking that only the state can undertake big projects, but here was a project which would have taken up virtually the whole of the DoE's funds for a complete year, had the

DoE tried to sponsor it alone. Admittedly there was was very considerable hidden state support, notably from the Royal Navy, which was able to get some useful experience for its divers, but the major contributions came from fund raising and from private firms, and most of all from the efforts of the numerous amateur workers.

Nevertheless one suspects that the big problems for the Mary Rose still lie in the future. It is one thing to raise the ship, quite another to conserve it. The problem of conservation of wood is one that is still not solved, for the primitive methods currently in use are long, expensive and only really suitable for small items. We must hope that Margaret Rule and her co-workers achieve an equal success in the task that lies ahead, that of the conservation and presentation of the remains. In case we have any millionaires among the readers of CA who would like to undertake this worthy task, the address of the Mary Rose Trust is 48 Warblington Street, Portsmouth.

The War against Archaeology

T REASURE hunters have declared war on archaeology. The magazine, Treasure Hunting, has launched a campaign, mostly written under the non de plume of Boudicca, who describes herself as a team of 20 investigators whose spokesman is John Robinson. Other articles have been written by John

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