When King Henry VIII’s flagship, the Mary Rose, sank off Portsmouth in 1545, it took with it 1248 iron cannonballs. Since the excavation of the shipwreck (from 1979-1983), the cannonballs have been conserved in different ways, offering a unique opportunity to study different conservation methods.
Humans have been using iron to make weapons, tools and ceremonial items for more than 20,000 years, but once these objects have been excavated they are at risk from corrosion, which can be accelerated in the presence of chlorine. Each recovered artefact has to be conserved to prevent it from deteriorating in the presence of air and water. Until now, a comparison of the effectiveness of different conservation methods has been hampered by the variable nature of both the artefacts found, and the environment in which they were buried.
>Read more on the Diamond Light Source website
Image: Dr Eleanor Schofield, Dr Giannantonio Cibin and Hayley Simon with iron shot and samples on Diamond’s B18 beamline.
Credit: Diamond Light Source