Texel Island
Scuba Divers off the island of Texel in Northern Holland have just uncovered a glimpse of 17th-century aristocratic life. A rare silk dress, a velvet embroidered purse, a perfume ball, and other familiar everyday object were found buried in the sand of a sunken shipwreck.
The rare damask silk dress was preserved under a layer of sand and wasn’t exactly what divers searching for sunken ships expected to find. Divers often look for buried shipwrecks in the region where the dress was discovered. Texel Island was once an important waypoint for trade ships near Northern Holland, due to its location between the North Sea and the Wadden Sea.
Ships anchored in the Texel roadstead, a sheltered area in the lee of the island, waiting for propitious winds, waiting out bad weather or taking on crew and cargo, only to be wrecked in sudden unexpected storms. Many wrecks are protected by the sand, but as currents shift they can be exposed to the more damaging elements of sea.
Experts believe the wealth of lady’s most prized possessions likely belonged to a woman of the upper classes. However despite the fanciness, the dress was probably for everyday wear because it wasn’t embroidered with golden or silver threads and was of a style frequently seen in paintings from the late Renaissance.
The woman’s books were stamped with the emblem of King Charles I, of the Stuart royal family from England, which suggests she may even have been royalty. It’s exceedingly rare to find such a well-preserved collection of textiles and makes this find one of the most important of its kind in Europe.
The find is especially important for historians who want to learn more about what everyday life was like during this era, as what is depicted in paintings is not always an accurate record of people’s lives. Finding this treasure trove of cache of possessions verifies that privileged women of the era really did dress in the ways we might expect and carry tiny metal balls of scented, dried flowers to mask body odors that would have been common in a culture where people didn’t bathe very often. [ARS Technica]
