Medieval grave slabs recovered from historic shipwreck

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Maritime archaeologists from Bournemouth University (BU) have recovered two medieval graves 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, which sank off the Dorset coast during the reign of Henry III in the thirteenth century.    Divers and archaeologists led by Bournemouth University brought the slabs to the surface on 4th June in a two hour operation from a depth of around seven metres where the stones lay.

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00:00I'm Tom Cousins, I'm a Maritime Archaeologist at Bournemouth University and in 2019 along with our

00:06skipper Trev we discovered a new shipwreck which was absolutely full of these mortars

00:11and over the next year we investigated it further and we found out it dated to about the 1250s and

00:18we also found these grave slabs on the seabed and so the last few years we're doing more and more

00:22research trying to find out more about the trade and industry and yesterday we finally got to raise

00:29these slabs off the seabed with the hopes of getting them to the museum and on display so

00:33everybody can see them. The shipwreck itself is probably one of the oldest in England.

00:38It's the only medieval 13th century shipwreck we have from the pre-black death period where

00:43the population was increasing. You'd all heard of King John the bad guy from Rum Hood. It's his son's

00:49reign and this is a time where there's huge building projects going on so things like

00:53Westminster Abbey, Salisbury Cathedral and all your local churches were being built at this

00:58point as well out of stone.

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