History
During excavations of the medieval port on the Linge in Tiel Tol-Zuid, shipwood was found in 1996.
The shipwood was reused as a rivetment. It consists of fragments of the bottom and a part of a board. The oldest fragments come from a barge whose timber was felled after around 990 AD.
The date of the sheeting, of which the timber was felled in the winter of 1013-1014 and the spring of 1014, shows that the ship could have been in operation for no longer than a decade.
Caulking
Embers are forged iron staples that were specially made to attach the moss slats, also called cinder rods, to the boards of the ship. The shape of the ember has evolved over the centuries. Those of the Tiel ship belong to the earliest type. The method of caulking with moss, cinder rod and cinder nails. This technique was used throughout North-West Europe in the Middle Ages.
Also in Deventer and Utrecht, 10th and 11th century quarries made from ship parts have been excavated. The two Tiel ship fragments show similarities with the Utrecht boats (see Utrecht 1) as well as with the Deventer ship parts.
Description
Type: Barge
A barge is a flat-bottomed ship, built mainly for river transport of heavy goods. Barge have a predominantly rectangular floor plan. The flat bottom consists of a carvel laid planks which merge into special, often l-shaped, kimboards. By extension, the term "embark" literally means to board the kind of boat called a "barque".