Page 85 - Vol_2_Archaeology of Manila Galleon Seaport Trade

52 C. Zhou

The timbers are jointed together by laps and nails. The bulkheads are made up of
2 or 3 layers’ of timber lap jointing together by iron nails, each piece of timber is
30 cm high and 10 cm thick. The timbers of stern board in the cabin S6 are jointed
along the beveled edge and fastened by the iron nails with the distance of 15–
25 cm.
The mast step is located in compartment N10 as the remain of topmast, which is
made up of mast splint and mast seat. The mast splint is shaped as two pieces of
erect planks and with an interval gap of 26 cm. Each splint is 70 cm high, 50 cm
wide and 20 cm thick. There are round holes at the upper end of the splint for
rigging the mast, and mortise structure at the lower end for inserting the mast seat.
The mast seat was buried and covered mostly by the concretion sediment, which
can be !gured as a piece of rectangular plank with 211 cm long, 40 cm wide and
35 cm thick.
According to the location of the topmast and the depth of each compartments,
the remain of the hull structure at situ is identi!ed as the lower part of the right side
of the boat, which could be one third of the original structure. The deepest com-
partment remaining was about 1 m deep, being the lower part of the hull below the
waterline.

Fig. 3.2 Porcelains loaded in the compartment at the situ