Abstract

It is now fifty years since the raising of the Swedish warship Vasa, one of the first wooden shipwrecks and certainly the largest to have been conserved with polyethylene glycol (PEG). Now a standard material for waterlogged wood conservation, PEG has since been used on a number of other shipwrecks, thanks largely to the Vasa experience. As the second generation of conservators at the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, we are often asked our opinions about PEG, and whether we would still use the same materials and techniques should another ship like Vasa be raised today. What have we learnt and what would we do differently this time? In this paper, we examine the Vasa experience from the initial conservation decisions, through to the most recent research projects and examine how PEG has fared over the last fifty years. Finally, we take the lessons learned and apply them to the future, both for Vasa material and for newly found wrecks. (C) 2012 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Conservation; Polyethylene glycol (PEG); The Swedish warship Vasa; Waterlogged archaeological wood

Published in

Journal of Cultural Heritage
2012, Volume: 13, number: 3, S, pages: 175-182
Publisher: ELSEVIER FRANCE-EDITIONS SCIENTIFIQUES MEDICALES ELSEVIER

SLU Authors

• Almkvist, Gunnar

  • Department of Molecular Sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Polymer Chemistry
Archaeology
History


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2012.01.017

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/39868