Carpow Logboat: Making and Using

THE CARPOW BRONZE AGE LOGBOAT THE CARPOW LOGBOAT: MAKING AND USING

The Carpow logboat is made from an oak tree cut down 3,000 years ago. The tree was around 400 years old and around 30 metres tall. Oak trees of this size are barely known today.

Using a range of bronze tools, including axes, the log was hollowed out and turned into a boat.

The following sequence of images was commissioned by Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust from artist David Hogg. They illustrate the stages involved in the making of a logboat.

A reconstructed parent oak, 400 years old showing where the Carpow logboat An experienced elder selects a tree. was cut from the trunk. THE CARPOW LOGBOAT: MAKING AND USING

Two v-shaped cuts are made to control the fall of the tree. THE CARPOW LOGBOAT: MAKING AND USING

Removing branches and cutting the log to length. THE CARPOW LOGBOAT: MAKING AND USING

Removing large planks using bronze axes to make v-shaped cuts and wooden wedges and mauls to cleave off the timber. THE CARPOW LOGBOAT: MAKING AND USING

Smoothing the sides of the vessel. THE CARPOW LOGBOAT: MAKING AND USING

Rolling the completed underside of the partly formed hull onto bearer logs. THE CARPOW LOGBOAT: MAKING AND USING

Removing blocks of timber from what will be the top of the boat. THE CARPOW LOGBOAT: MAKING AND USING

Finishing off the hull with the gentle paring action of axes and adzes. USING

The boat would have had several potential uses on the river and could have been used for all of them:

• Fishing and hunting, especially for salmon, which would • With a crew of two the boat could readily have moved have been large and plentiful at the time. The fish were cargo up to a tonne in weight around the estuary and caught by line, net and traps and the catch transported in along the Tay and Earn. Cargos could have included the boat. The boat could also have served as a platform stone, timber, grain, reeds, peat, metalwork and and transport for the hunting of wildfowl, seals, otters etc. carcasses.

David Hogg’s reconstruction of the logboat in use for sweep netting near David Hogg’s reconstruction of the logboat transporting goods along the Mugdrum Island. river Earn. USING

The boat would have had several potential uses on the river and could have been used for all of them:

• The boat could have carried up to 14 people across • In making offerings to the river as part of worship a the river. The Carpow stretch of the river had several logboat would have made an ideal platform from which ferry sites as recently as the 19th century, some of them to cast objects into the Tay. A boat would be essential operational since at least the Roman Iron Age. The if offerings were to be made in the middle of the river. boat’s find-spot is very close to one of the busiest of the Perhaps the logboat was deliberately sunk as one of ferry crossings, Ferryfield of Carpow the offerings.

David Hogg’s reconstruction of the logboat in use as a ferry. David Hogg’s reconstruction of the logboat in use as a platform for votive offerings. DISCOVERY

In 2001 several people spotted what they thought was a rotting tree in the bed of the river Tay at Carpow. Scott McGuckin realised it was a logboat. A team of archaeologists visited the site. They confirmed it was a logboat and began the assessment of its age, size and condition. A sample cut from the boat gave a radiocarbon date at around 1,000BC, late in the Bronze Age.

Battling against the daily tide, in 2002 and 2003 trial excavations were carried out. The full length of the boat was found to be 9m (30 feet) and, apart from the exposed bow, in good, waterlogged condition. An attempt was made to protect the boat in the river. A year later it was clear this wasn’t working so it was decided to excavate and preserve the boat.

The project partners, led by Perth & Kinross Heritage Trust, returned to the Tay in the summer of 2006 to carry out the exciting task of excavating and recovering the boat.

The logboat revealed in its Tay setting. EXCAVATION

Taking advantage of low river levels and the lowest tides of the year, the excavation of the boat took place over seven days in late July to early August 2006.

At the end of the excavation the whole boat lay on a supporting bed of sandbags and it was carefully photographed and drawn. Finds from within the boat included fragments of worked wood and some hazelnut shells. The boat revealed.

The logboat revealed in its Tay setting. In comes the tide. RECOVERY

For this stage of the project the key partners were Mooring & Maritime Services, and the conservation team from National Museums Scotland, whose engineering and conservation skills were deployed to float the boat from its resting place.

Three 200 litre plastic barrels were rigged inside the hull of the boat that were partially filled with air. The boat was floated out on the incoming tide. It was moored to the river bank overnight then towed down to Newburgh, rigged into a lifting cage and craned out onto the back of A new journey begins a lorry. Slowly it was driven to the NMS Conservation and Analytical Research Laboratory in Granton, Edinburgh.

She floats! Leaving the river behind CONSERVATION

The problem for the conservation team was that the wooden (oak) logboat was waterlogged and if it was allowed to air-dry it would shrink by as much as 20%. Shrinking would destroy the surface of the boat.

The conservation process chosen was; • Maintaining water-logging • Cutting boat into three • Immersing each section in a tank of PEG solution. PEG, or polyethylene glycol was soaked into the wood to replace where the wood fibres had rotted away. • Freeze-drying each section to remove any remaining water • Re-setting any warping and splits • Making good joins between the three pieces to allow their display

This whole process took five years and would have been impossible to achieve without the NMS conservation facilities and team led by Dr Theo Skinner.

The boat being kept wet in its assessment phase CONSERVATION

Two of the boat sections in their PEG baths. A section of the boat in the freeze-drying oven. REPAIRING

Once made a logboat such as the Carpow vessel could expect to be in use for something like 30 years. During that time it would have required maintenance and the boat gives us several clues to its long use and repairs:

• The larger of two splits in the bottom of the hull had seven patches of fat or oil-saturated plant matter applied.

• A small wooden block was fitted between the inside of the hull and the transom board, probably replacing an area of rotten wood in the parent log.

• A smaller transom board was fitted behind the main board probably to counteract leakage caused by splits in the hull.

The splits in the hull may have been severe enough for the boat to be abandoned and sunk, well before its expected 30 years of use. THANKS

The Museum would like to say a big thank you to all those who worked on the logboat excavation and conservation: Perth & Kinross Heritage Trust (lead partner) Historic Environment Scotland National Museums Scotland CFA Archaeology Ltd Moorings and Marine Services and the finders - Scott McGuckin, Keith Emerson and Ricky Blake.