"Before the Mast: Life and Death Aboard the Mary Rose&q
Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 11:49 am
This is the book published about a year ago on the nonmilitary artifacts found in the Mary Rose wreck. I've skimmed or read more than half the book so far.
It's awesome. A superb value for the price. It's going to be one of the definitive references for 16th-century material culture. The details and illustrations, both of original finds and of reconstructions, will enable craftspeople to reproduce many types of items: leather, woodwork, basketry, ceramic, metal. The material may be relevant to earlier periods, too, since the authors sometimes reference similar objects that are in 15th-century artworks. What's especially valuable is that the items range in quality, from more-elaborate, higher-end objects to simple, more crude objects that belonged to common sailors.
I eagerly await the next volume, "Weapons of Warre," which will cover weapons and armor.
It's awesome. A superb value for the price. It's going to be one of the definitive references for 16th-century material culture. The details and illustrations, both of original finds and of reconstructions, will enable craftspeople to reproduce many types of items: leather, woodwork, basketry, ceramic, metal. The material may be relevant to earlier periods, too, since the authors sometimes reference similar objects that are in 15th-century artworks. What's especially valuable is that the items range in quality, from more-elaborate, higher-end objects to simple, more crude objects that belonged to common sailors.
I eagerly await the next volume, "Weapons of Warre," which will cover weapons and armor.