- He was a five-foot-tall sailor, suffered rickets as a
child, had the poise and balance of a trapeze artist, and died 351 years
ago.
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- This incredibly detailed profile of a young seaman has
been pieced together by scientists using bones recovered from the wreck
of Oliver Cromwell's warship The Swan.
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- The remains of the body was found in the vessel, which
sank off the Scottish coast in 1653.
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- "He would have looked like King Kong," Dr Colin
Martin, a marine archaeologist from the University of St Andrews, told
the British Association of Science Festival at Exeter, referring to the
broad shoulders and bowed legs the sailor would have had.
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- The Swan had been one of a six-strong task force sent
by Cromwell to attack Duart Castle, stronghold of the Maclean clan, whose
chief was an ally of Charles II. But as the six ships lay at anchor, unloading
their siege equipment, soldiers and provisions, a violent storm struck,
sinking three of them. Only The Swan has been found.
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- Dr Martin explained how he and Professor Sue Black, of
the University of Dundee, had pieced together the sailor's life from the
bones discovered amidst the "archaeological lasagna" of the wreck,
which had been embedded in the sea floor until its discovery in 1979. The
bones had been thought to belong to different people, but turned out to
be from one. About 80 per cent of the skeleton has been discovered, and
tells its own tale of its deceased owner, dubbed "Seaman Swan",
an able seaman who would have hauled the heavy mainsails and leapt through
the rigging for hours every day.
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- "This individual represents a lot of what would
have been true for the time," said Dr Martin. "He was in his
early twenties, and as a child - like many other people of the period,
including Charles I - had rickets, which left him with bowed, stunted legs.
But apart from that he was extremely fit and healthy. He exercised in a
way we would think of as beyond comprehension. His upper body was extraordinarily
well-developed and was equally strong both sides, like a modern trapeze
artist."
-
- He said he was able to deduce this through careful study
of the breadth of the dead seaman's chest, and the points on the bones
where the muscles attach; in his case those would have been very large.
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- He was fed well, and bones from fish and sheep were found
in the wreck. However, his molars were almost worn flat by the stone-ground
flour which made up a major part of his diet. This, plus signs of pelvic
repetitive strain injury caused by jumping from rigging, indicated that,
had the young sailer lived, he would have done so uncomfortably.
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- Dr Martin said that the discovery was a delight to marine
historians. "Before the 1660s, kings would build boats any old way.
There wasn't much organisation about it. So this really comes from the
pre-history of shipping; there aren't many surviving records of the time."
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- ©2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd. All rights reserved
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/story.jsp?story=560544
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