Using an advanced new X-ray scanning technique, a team of University of Copenhagen researchers has helped to identify the substances quietly eating their way through the wreckage of the Mary Rose, a 510-year-old English warship. The technique can be used to extend the life of the renowned shipwreck and better preserve other cultural artefacts around the world in the future.
The crown jewel of Henry VIII's 16th century fleet was its flagship, the venerable Mary Rose. More than 500 years after its launch, the vessel remains a precious cultural treasure. Though she ploughed the Atlantic and battled with her heavy cannons for 34 years - and laid buried beneath the turbulent English Channel for 437 more, bacteria and chemicals have begun eating away at her remnants, on display at the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth, England. Thankfully, the ship's conservators have received a helping hand.
A new X-ray method has allowed an international team of researchers to identify zinc-sulfide nanoparticles in the ship's timbers that are contributing to the ship's decay. Until now, this information was impossible to learn from the wood.
Among those involved in the project is Kirsten Marie Ørnsbjerg Jensen, a 36-year-old chemist at the University of Copenhagen. Jensen leads the Nanostructure Group at the Department of Chemistry, where her research focuses on the internal structures of materials, right down to the nano-level. Here, she scans materials using advanced X-ray technology, among other techniques. This puts her on home turf for this atypical research project.
"We have analyzed timber from the Mary Rose by way of a new technique that is somewhat comparable to how a hospital's CT scanner works. The difference is that our scanning method combines CT scanning with what's known as X-ray scattering. It lets us analyze the structure of materials at an atomic level, which makes it possible to find and map substances within the ship's wood. It gives us information about what is contributing to the wood's decay, so that it can be better preserved in the future," explains Associate Professor Kirsten Marie Ørnsbjerg Jensen.
Facts
• Using a new X-ray technique, researchers from Denmark, France, England and the United States identified a number of destructive substances in the wooden hull of The Mary Rose, a 510-year-old English warship - information that was once impossible to get at.
• The new technique opens up the possibility for improving archaeological conservation methods.
• The Mary Rose was a carrack-type naval vessel and the flagship of Henry VIII's Tudor navy.
• The Mary Rose was one of the English fleet's largest naval vessels over four decades of sporadic warfare. It is one of the earliest examples of a purpose-built warship.
• The ship sank with 500 men aboard, just off the coast of Portsmouth, during a battle against France.
• The ship weighed 500 tons and was armed with heavy guns hidden behind gun-ports.
