Parral Beads from the Sea

It was time for another visit to Portsmouth and I treated myself to the annual Ultimate Explorer ticket for the Royal Naval Dockyard.

It was raining when I arrived, so I headed to the Mary Rose for a wander around this fascinating museum featuring artifacts recovered from Henry VIII's flag ship which sank in The Solent during a battle with the French in 1545, going down with over 500 men, of which only 35 survived.   The ship was rediscovered in 1970 and its remaining artefacts excavated over the next decade (and continues today). The ship itself was raised on 11th October 1982, following many years of searching, excavation, and recording and was finally returning home to Portsmouth Dockyard, where she had been built almost 500 years earlier.  The Mary Rose museum now displays her following years of preservation and restoration, along with some of the 19,000 artefacts recovered, using the latest technology culminating Dive 4D ; a 3D film where you are a diver helping raise the ship in 1972 with the 4th dimension being multi-sensory features including sounds, smells, bubbles, wind and movement! Definitely one to be revisited over the year my ticket covers!

Many of the wooden fittings found area in remarkable state of preservation, such as the subject for my main image chosen for Ingeborg's Abstract  Thursday challenge of repetition. Parral beads are a set of beads threaded onto a rope used to allow a sail or yard to be attached to a mast and slide up and down.

I emerged from the museum to a bright sunny day, so ended my visit with a walk round nearby Gunwharf Quay (extra), enjoying an ice cream on the way!