A man-of-war in pieces: Fragmenting the Rikswasa of 1599

Arnshav, Mirja,1977-Stockholms universitet,Arkeologi,Sjöhistoriska museet, Sverige (author)

A man-of-war in pieces : Fragmenting the Rikswasa of 1599

In the 1960s, the wreck of a Swedish early 17th-century warship, the Rikswasa, was salvaged by two diving brothers who used the waterlogged oak in their carpeting business. Substantial parts of the wrecked hull were transformed into souvenirs, furniture and crafts, all marked with a plate stating the unique provenance of the material. The deliberate breakage, which took place at the same time as the world-famous Vasa was being reconstructed only a few miles away, marked the end of a 100-year-long period of commercial salvage operations of waterlogged wreck oak in Sweden, as ancient wrecks were thereafter protected by the Heritage Conservation Act. Drawing from the case of the Rikswasa, this contribution looks into the historic qualities attributed to the waterlogged wreck oak material and discusses how it encouraged fragmentation. It suggests that the breaking and redistributing of the Rikswasa can be understood in terms of a time-specific engagement with the past and an alternative take on heritage, which contrasts with the present preservationist paradigm. In addition, it is shown that the wreck fragments formed new objects in their own right, with a diversity of possible trajectories, and that this was enabled by fragmentation.

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