Dover Boat Reborn
In the summer of 2010, a full-size replica of the Dover Bronze Age boat will cross the channel from England to the shores of France, the first time such a voyage has been made in a vessel of this type for three and a half millennia. That at least is the hope of an international team of archaeologists, naval architects, ancient woodworking specialists, academics, museum curators, and other specialists who have put together an ambitious scheme to build the replica under the aegis of the Dover Bronze Age Boat Trust (DBABT). Experts from Belgium, England, France, and Holland have put together a three-year programme of research and construction to learn more about the famous 3,500-year-old boat, now on display in Dover Museum, and to explore how Bronze Age communities kept in contact across the seas.
Peter Clark, Deputy Director of the Canterbury Archaeological Trust and a Trustee of the DBABT, is leading the project. "There are two main aims to the scheme," he said. "First, there is a limit to how much we can learn studying the ancient boat timbers themselves; even today, there remain many questions about how the boat was built, what seas it could negotiate, and what cargo it could carry. The only way we can learn more about these issues is to build a replica and put it in the water to test which theories and ideas work best. The second aim is to learn more about the people who built and used the boat. More and more evidence has come to light in recent years that Bronze Age communities in the transmanche area had a very similar culture, quite different to that of contemporary societies inland. The only way in which this cross-channel community could have maintained itself was by using boats like that found in Dover."
Work has already started, with a small team of experts reassessing the original timbers, planning to prepare blueprints for a half-scale replica to be built in 2009. Having ironed out any problems with this smaller prototype, a full-scale version will be built early in 2010, and the historic crossing to France made later that year. The replica boat will then form the centerpiece of a travelling exhibition focusing on the Bronze Age Connections between communities on either side of the Channel.
"A critical aspect of the project is education and cross-border co-operation," Peter continued. "I very much want to get schoolchildren and students from all four countries involved; by studying and celebrating the connections between our communities in the distant past, we hope to foster new connections and better understanding of our mutual heritage."
Fundraising for the project has now started in earnest; the three-year programme will cost several hundred thousand pounds. "We are optimistic that the European Union will see fit to financially support the project," Peter said, "but we will need matching funding for any grant they make, and more critically we are short of funds for the preparatory work during the coming year."
Donations or financial sponsorship should be sent to the DBABT c/o Dover Museum, Market Square, Dover CT16 1PB.
Pete Clark
[fg]jpg|Artist's impression of the Dover boat at sea. Will this scene become reality in 2010?|Image[/fg]
[fg]jpg|Piecing the original boat back together in 1999; the ancient timbers have not yet given up all their secrets; experimental archaeology is the only way forward.|Image[/fg]