Nothing Doing

Wednesday, May 13, 2009
onsdag 13 maj 2009

To be honest with everyone, I have nothing terribly interesting to report.

Today I got a ton of stuff done on my project. Most importantly, I learned the value of eliminating sources. Our database, MarketStore, is obviously full of important information, but a large portion of information that I would like to have is...not missing exactly, but is not readily available. Many of the buttons that I'm working with were found in personal boxes, in barrels or kegs or whatnot, and if they were found in one, the record for each button or each group of buttons mentions that. However, if you search for the barrel itself, or the box within the barrel, or whatever, all that's mentioned is that there were "things in it".

Fred suggested I look at the conservators' reports to see if there was any connection...and the most that I got out of that search was essentially, "there were things in this barrel", much like the MarketStore account. So tomorrow I will look at the divers' reports and original archeologists' records...although I expect the same. Maybe I will just end up looking up similar find numbers, or something...this might be the most tedious or time-consuming bit of it.

On the brighter side, today I made up a preliminary map of where some of the buttons were found; unfortunately, I can only map those that were marked with specific locations. Perhaps looking into the divers' and archeologists' records will provide me with information that was not entered into MarketStore...although that's unlikely. We'll see.

At this point, I've actually got a pretty good idea of how the buttons on the Upper Gun Deck were distributed, and they seem to all make a good deal of sense. Tomorrow hopefully I will be able to examine the Lower Gun Deck and the Orlop.

Something to take into consideration, interestingly and frustratingly, is that they had to wash a lot of sediment--and with it, artefacts--into the lower decks to keep the ship stable when it was being excavated. Perhaps that will have no effect on my research, but I imagine that items as small as buttons could be easily transported into areas in which they never would have existed normally. I would like to have a talk with someone or other who can tell me concrete ideas about how the Orlop was used and if there's any chance personal effects could have been stored there.

Anyway, that was my day...and many similar days to come! I've been overwhelming myself with information and tasks, etc, and I've tapered off in the past two days or so, realizing that I actually have something like 6 more weeks here in which to finish this project, if necessary, and that focusing on only the buttons, for example, instead of all clothing hardware, is acceptable...I've never done something like this, so I'm loving this incredible opportunity to create my own research methods and experience. Fred is gone until next Wednesday, too, off tomorrow into the woods of the North American South, so it's really up to me for a bit, which is very exciting...let's just hope that I've done the right things for when he returns! It's very tempting for me to try to get everything done on the first go, but the more I examine the facts of this project, the more prudent it seems to work with knowns for now and incorporate unknowns in as they are clarified along the way, which is part of the point of this project.

In the evening, I got another box of wine--a white South African wine this time. MOST of the wines here are South African, and I even saw a commercial on TV (I know, me, watch TV? But I had no book to read!), joking about how much Swedes like South African wine. I had no idea. But I won't disagree! I'm reading another book (having finished the Roald Dahl) by W. Somerset Maughm, arguably my favorite author. It's called Now and Then or something, and it's some story about Machiavelli. I'm liking it well enough, and I'm almost halfway through just from reading it tonight, but I would say I prefer his other books. While I was reading in the lingering sunshine, some crazy band was playing on Skeppsholmen...I thought it was some sort of musical play sort of thing, but then it started to sound much more like a protest, and as far as I could see, there were many people with signs....but it was wonderful music until there was some sort of screamy song, a call and response thing. In any case, I wished that I could just hop over to Skeppsholmen to see what was going on, but that would have been a 20 minute walk or so...and that didn't seem worth it. Just like Watch Hill being 10 minutes by boat and 30 minutes by car, I probably could have swum to Skeppsholmen in 5 minutes, but walking there you have to go this roundabout route. Oh well, maybe they'll put up posters next time.

I hope this finds you all well, with less screamy music in your ears!

Love always,
Arianna

(post script...Odd just came by to tell me that the offer still stands on sailing on the 29th...OMG!)