800 year old medieval grave stones found in Studland Bay water
They've been recovered from a 13th century shipwreck
Maritime archaeologists have recovered two medieval grave slabs which have been lying at the bottom of Studland Bay for nearly 800 years.
The slabs, carved from Purbeck marble, were amongst the cargo of England’s oldest historic shipwreck - the Mortar Wreck - which sank in the 1200's.
Experts from Bournemouth University believe they were intended to be coffin lids or crypt monuments for high status individuals in the clergy.
The slabs were brought to the surface this week (Tuesday 4th June) in a two hour operation from a depth of around seven metres where the stones lay.
One immaculately preserved slab measures one and a half metres and weighs an estimated 70 kg.
The other, much larger slab is in two pieces, with a combined length of two metres and a weight of around 200 kg.
Tom Cousins, a Maritime Archaeologist at Bournemouth University who led the recovery, said:
“The wreck went down in the height of the Purbeck stone industry and the grave slabs we have here were a very popular monument for bishops and archbishops across all the cathedrals and monasteries in England at the time.
Examples have been found in Westminster Abbey, Canterbury Cathedral and Salisbury Cathedral.”
“Although Purbeck marble was quarried near Corfe Castle there has always been a debate about how much work was done here and how much was done in London. Now we know they were definitely carving them here, but they hadn’t been polished into the usual shiny finish at the time they sank so there is still more we can learn.
"The future aim of the project is to train the next generation and give them the same opportunities I had. We’ve already started teaching our second-year students to dive and as they get into the third year we’re going to take them out to sea and teach them their first steps to becoming maritime archaeologists.”
The slabs will now be desalinated and conserved by the Bournemouth team until they can be put on public display along with the other recovered artefacts in the new Shipwreck Gallery when Poole Museum reopens next year.