
17th century warships linked to Sweden's historic Vasa found - pseudolus
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/08/17th-century-warships-linked-to-swedens-historic-vasa-found
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beloch
The Vasa museum is amazing. The ship itself sank 15 minutes into it's maiden
voyage and had as uninteresting a career as can be imagined, but the museum
captures a slice of 17th century Stockholm life in a way that's utterly
compelling. It does a fantastic job of telling the story of the people who
built the Vasa.

Note: There's a documentary on the Vasa that was playing in a side-room at the
museum when I was there, but can be found online. It's worth watching if you
have an interest in the ship.

[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2301604/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2301604/)

The quality of the Vasa museum gives me hope that, one day soon, the recently
discovered wrecks of the Erebus and Terror might be raised and put in a
museum. Similar to the Vasa, these 19th century ships sank in waters with
excellent conditions for preservation. Archaeologists believe conditions may
actually have been good enough to preserve paper[1]! We can only hope journals
kept by the crew may resolve the mystery surrounding the fate of the Franklin
expedition. If a ship that sank 15 minutes into its maiden voyage can be the
centrepiece of a world-class museum, imagine the museum that could be made out
of ships that explored both of the world's poles and met fates that remain
shrouded in mystery!

[1][https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/terror-wreck-exploration-
fran...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/terror-wreck-exploration-franklin-
expedition-mystery-1.5252023)

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caseysoftware
I was at the Vasa museum just a few weeks ago. While the ship itself is
massive and amazing, what they recovered with it and how is even more so.

It wasn't lost at sea in battle but on the way out of port. Therefore there
wasn't any battle damage and it was fully stocked with supplies and gear.

Then since the mud was soft enough, a good portion of the ship sank deeply and
was protected from water, weather, etc that would normally erode and destroy
things. You can see all kinds of detail from woodwork and decoration.

Finally, they have a display on how they were able to recover it ~50 years ago
and the sheer amount of effort it took. It's stunning looking through the
diagrams, etc.

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paulajohnson
If you are ever in Stockholm do go and see the Vasa. The picture does not do
it justice. Seriously amazing.

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bequanna
The ship itself is just incredible.

They also have a large collection of artifacts that were well preserved in the
cold, low-oxygen environment. The most interesting item I recall was a portion
of human brain from the wreck that was preserved and somehow recovered.

