At least a portion of the life stories of eight men who served on Mary Rose, an English warship that sank in 1545 during a battle with the French navy, can now be told. They number among 179 sailors whose remains, along with thousands of artifacts, have been recovered from the wreck in the Solent, the strait between the Isle of Wight and the southern coast of England. A team led by archaeologists Jessica Scorrer and Richard Madgwick of Cardiff University conducted strontium- and oxygen-isotope analysis of samples of the seafarers’ teeth. This allowed them to determine where the crew members grew up and what they ate as children. Three of the individuals may have hailed from areas with climates warmer than Britain’s, possibly the Iberian Peninsula or North Africa. The five other sailors appear to have been raised in western or southern Britain. This provides evidence of racial and ethnic diversity among the crew of Mary Rose, and in Tudor society more broadly, says Scorrer. The individuals have been given nicknames, including the Archer, the Cook, the Officer, the Purser, and the Young Mariner, based on objects found near their remains or the locations on the ship where they were found.
Tudor Travelers
SHARE:
Recommended Articles
Digs & Discoveries March/April 2021
Joust Like a King
Royal Museums Greenwich
Digs & Discoveries July/August 2024
From the Horse’s Mouth
Digs & Discoveries May/June 2024
Workhouse Woes
(© MOLA)
Searching for Lost Cities May/June 2024
Which Island Is it Anyway?
Unidentified Island, English Channel
(Chensiyuan/ Wikimedia Commons)
-
Artifacts March/April 2022
Paleolithic Beads
(Jennifer Miller) -
Around the World March/April 2022
TASMANIA
(PAHSMA2021) -
Digs & Discoveries March/April 2022
Poetic License
(Courtesy José Miguel Noguera Celdrán) -
Features March/April 2022
A Monumental Imperial Biography
How Constantine’s architects pieced together the past to create a new vision in the heart of Rome
(Noppasin Wongchum/ Alamy Stock Photo)