Concept

Dover Bronze Age Boat

The Dover Bronze Age boat is one of fewer than 20 Bronze Age boats so far found in Britain. It dates to 1575–1520 BC, which may make it one of the oldest substantially intact boat in the world (older boat finds are small fragments, some less than a metre square) – though much older ships exist, such as the Khufu ship from 2500 BC. The boat was made using oak planks sewn together with yew lashings. This technique has a long tradition of use in British prehistory; the oldest known examples are the narrower Ferriby boats from east Yorkshire. A 9.5m long section of the boat is on display at Dover Museum, in the south-east corner of England. On 28 September 1992, construction workers from Norwest Holst (who were building the new A20 road link between Folkestone and Dover), working alongside archaeologists from the Canterbury Archaeological Trust, uncovered what remained of a large prehistoric boat thought to be 3,500 years old. This would place its origin around 1500 BC, in the Middle Bronze Age in England. The boat was buried under a road and the burial site stretched out towards buildings. It was decided that it would be too dangerous to dig too near the buildings, so an unknown length of the boat has had to be left under the ground. Previous attempts to remove such boats whole have been unsuccessful, so it was decided to cut the boat into sections and remove it and reassemble it afterwards. After nearly a month of excavation 9.5 metres of the boat was eventually recovered. Depending on different views of the true size of the complete boat, this 9.5 metres could be up to two thirds of the full size of the boat. The River Dour leads straight into the English Channel, so speculation has been made ever since its discovery about whether the Dover boat went to sea and sailed to the Continent. There is plenty of evidence that there was cross-Channel communication, but it is not known what kind of boats actually sailed across.

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