Page 92 - Kennemerland VOC ship, 1664 - Published Reports

R. PRICE AND K. MUCKELROY: THEKENNEMERLAND
discussed below. Under this ‘organic matte’ there was usually a further 0.1 to 0.2 m of un- consolidated deposit, often containing further artefacts, The underlying substrate was the usual compacted yellow gravel, although this tended to a light grey at the eastern end of Site G. Over much of Site F there was a whitish deposit coating the rocks and stones of this level, similar to that noted on Site C. A couple of test excavations were done within this com- pacted gravel to check that it was truly undis- turbed, but, as elsewhere, they revealed no artefacts.
As indicated on Fig. 5,Site F contained a couple of deposits somewhat different from the standard described above. Towards the western and northern parts of the gully, the organic level merged into a layer of relatively soft iron concretion, which would be easily broken off in lumps, and which often collapsed when the underlying gravel was removed. At least in part, this iron concretion was derived from long tubular objects, about 0.07 m in diameter, which had completely disappeared. Against the eastern wall of the gully, there was an area where the organic level was saturated with a
sticky black tar; when lifted this deposit smelt strongly like the contents of any wooden boat’s bilges, a fact which may give a clue to its origins.
Site G, of which three representative sections are illustrated in Fig. 7, also contained some noteworthy features. As indicated on Fig. 5, there were two areas where the organic level was impregnated with tar, within one of which there were several substantial timbers, two of them being 0.84m long, set in considerable pud- dles of tar (Fig. 8). One of these fragments repre- sented the only example on this site of two pieces of wood being joined; they were nailed together, with their grains running at about loo from parallel, and with a quantity of heavily tarred caulking between them. If they were from the ship herself, then this almost parallel graining is best explained by the suggestion that they represent a piece of planking with a sec- tion of anti-worm sheathing attached. Under- neath this tar-saturated deposit was a piece of paper measuring 0-08 by 0.04 m, presumably derived from the Kennemerland. At the eastern end of the site, the organic level was somewhat less matted, and consisted entirely of wood
Figure 6. Section of organic matte, including a hank of rope. Scale with 0.05 m divisions.
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