Batavia, a Dutch East Indiaman, sank in 1629 on its maiden voyage to the Indies
in the Houtman Abrolhos Archipelago off the coast of Western Australia. The ship
gained notoriety for the mutiny and horrific massacre that engulfed the survivors after
the wreck, but the vessel itself was lost for centuries. The remains of the ship were
discovered in 1963, and excavated between 1971 and 1980 by a team of archaeologists
from the Western Australian Museum. The surviving hull timbers, raised from the
seabed by archaeologists, represent approximately 3.5 percent of the original hull. They
include part of the transom and aft port quarter of the ship. To date, Batavia represents
the only excavated remains of an early seventeenth–century Dutch East Indiaman that
have been raised and conserved in a way that permits detailed study. This is of great
significance as there are no lines drawings or construction plans for any Dutch ships
from this period. The study and comparison of the Batavia hull timbers with those of
other Dutch shipwrecks and historic documentation contributes to the understanding of
Dutch shipbuilding techniques at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the
seventeenth centuries.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2872 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Van Duivenvoorde, Wendy |
| Contributors | Crisman, Kevin J. |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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