The Dover Bronze Age Boat
The re-assembly of the Dover
Boat
In July 1998, the first elements
of the incredible case specially designed for the Boat arrived at
the museum.
The large metal components of the case
where lifted above the museum's carpark and brought into the
building through the gallery window. The case elements were then
fitted together in the gallery. The custom-built cradle has been
partially assembled inside the case.
Since the arrival of the pieces of the
boat in Dover in the summer of 1998 a team of archaeologists worked
on reassembling the boat onto its exhibition cradle.
This picture shows a stage in this
progress - the mid section pieces taking shape on the cradle.
Slowly the individual pieces were offered up to the 'jigsaw', still
on their individual custom supports. Measurements were taken for
the final cradle elements, crafted to exactly match the shape of
the boat pieces they are supporting.
The flat bottom section shown here
was the first section to be lifted off its temporary supports and
placed on the permanent exhibition cradle. You can just see on the
right hand side of the boat the gentle curve of the side pieces
(iles) alongside the flat planks.
It was a complex and difficult
procedure with each new piece creating a new challenge. This means
the team putting it together often had to think on their feet!
(superbly demonstrated here by Barry Corke and Adrian Murphy).
The reassembly of the boat was
undertaken by Canterbury Archaeological Trust under the supervision
of Peter Clark.