Page 221 - Loss of the VOC Retourschip Batavia, Western Australia, 1629

ARCHAEOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ARTEFACTS
The classification scheme
The artefacts from the Balavia have a complicated significance. They reflect the life and times of an early 17th-century Dutch East India Company ship, and, as such, they serve as a social record of the shipboatd society and its functions. As a whole,the artefacts may be used to further our knowledge of the trade patterns and of the equipage of the ships that carried out this trade. The artefacts, as individual objects, ate imbued with the tech- nological and scientific developments that went into their construction. They may also be Seen in the broader context oftheevolvingpatternsoftradethroughouttheworld,and, in particular, in the age ofEuropean expansion. Addition- ally, their presence on the site holds the means to investi- gate the events that occurred as the ship broke up after the wreck, and the subsequent hislOry of the site to the present day. .
The fIrst problem is, thctefore, to identify these objects and interpret their Significance. Although the archaeologi- cal excavation of a maritime site is technologically dim- cul~ the atchaeological interpretation of this material, through its identifIcation and classification, is one of the most difficult problems facing hislOrical maritime atchae- ology. The problem exists at a number of diffctent levels and is particularly well-illustrated with the example of the V.O.C. ships. Owing to the extremely rich source of documentary evidence available in the archives, the at- chaeologist is faced with a completely different situation than is normally experienced in other forms of atchaeol- ogy, both above and below the water. The very diversity and extent of the historical information compounds the problem; this may seem a contradiction, since one would normally expect that the atchival information would sim- plify the archaeologist's work. However, itis thecomplex- ityofthearchivalmaterialthatcreatestheproblem.Itgives certain types ofinformation atan unusually detailed level, requiring a far more thorough analysis than would other- wise be expected. Without historical documentation, the objects yielded by a shipwreck site may be identified only at a simple descriptive level, 'a hammct', for example. Wheredetailedhistoricalrecordsexis~asinthecaseofthe V.O.C. wreck sites, it is possible to fInd out a great deal moreabouttheidentifiedobjects.Usingtheexampieofthe hammer, the hislOrical records may enable it to be identi- fIed as a cooper's hammer. The records may also indicate that such hammers had a number of functions or purposes on boatd the ship i.e. belonging to the assistant cooper and used for driving hoops onto batrels; it may even have had a specialized natne. On the other hand, the diverse func- tions of the object may be known, but the owner cannot be identifIed; thus, a pestle and mortar could belong to a number of people: the surgeon, the constable, the gunner, thecook,oritcouldbepanofthesuppliesfortheCompany in the Indies. Hcte, the archaeological record may help, since if the mortar was found in association with other artefacts, this may help 10 determine its purpose on the ship. As the atchaeologist's objective is to interpret these sorts of artefacts from an excavation, one must, therefore,
be completely fatniliat with this archival information.
A number of diffctent approaches have been adopted by authors classifying material from the excavation of V.O.C.ships(seeforexample:Gawronski(1987),Gawron- ski and Kist (1984), Green (1977 and 1986), Ingleman- Sundberg (1977), Lam (1985), Matsden (1974 and 1978),
Martin (1972 and 1977), Pijl-Ketel (1982), and St~nuit (1974»_ In an eatli... publication dealing with the Ver- guide Draeck material, the author classifIed the attefacts according to material composition (Green, 1977). The classificationheadingsweredividedintoceramic,ferrous, non-ferrous, organic, etc. Other authors have classified material from V.O.C. wreck sites according to various functions on the ship. The former approach has a number of advantages: the classifIcation process is simple and straightforwatd, and can be applied from the moment of recovery, making it a very practical system for the man- agement of a collection. The approach also suffers from a number of disadvantages. In particular, the system is completely arbitrary, so that artefacts having the same function atedissociated.Forexample,patlSofthegunnery equipmentcouldbesepatatedintoironfor thegun,organic for the carriage, non-ferrous for the gunner's equipment, and even stone for the flint from a flint-lock. Thcte would also be a classifIcation problem where an artefact is com- prised ofa number ofmaterials, for example, the compos- ite gun.
In applying the functional approach, there is the pro\>- lem ofdisagreement between authors about the classifica- tion of the functions. Thus, it may be argued that gunnery is part of the ship as a whole, whereas another argument would hold that it is a separate group in its own righL This is a very complex issue, and requires a detailed under- standingofthesystemusedby theCompany,aworking knowledge of the disposition of the source material in Aigemeen Rijksarchief and the ability to read the neces- sary manuscripts.
The approach taken in this publication has been to try to use the archival source material to help identify the artefacts. The material has been divided according to the following categories: equipment and materials related to the use on boatd the ship; ship's supplies and provisions; pClsonal items; supplies for the Indies; trade items. Before any Company ship departed for the Indies, a complete list was made of the material that was taken on board the ship. On the ship's return from the Indies, there was a reconcili- ation with the equipage list. Every item that had been put on boatd priorto departure, had to be accounted for. Origi- nally, these lists were hand-written, but later, as the Company became increasingly standardized,the lists were printedandthenumbersofitemsfIlledinbyhandandthen signed for. The equipage lists, therefore, are itemized ac- counts of everything that would be required by the differ- ent specialist groups of people within the ship who were basically responsible for getting the ship to the Indies. Thus, the steersman would be supplied with chatlS and navigation equipment that would enable him to set the
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