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Title
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Baltic shipping marks on nineteenth-century timber : their deciphering and a proposal for classifying old timber
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Author
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Abstract
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| Intriguing marks have been recorded on numerous nineteenth-century timber structures throughout Europe. These inscriptions bear witness to an intensive trade that supplied Norwegian and Baltic timber - mainly softwood - to most Western European countries. Despite the abundance of archaeological records, the current understanding of these shipping marks is very limited. Consequently, historical surveys and restoration campaigns are not using their potential for a better understanding of historic timbers. This paper aims at understanding the organisation of the nineteenth-century Baltic timber trade and at investigating the need for marking timber at different stages in this trade. It focuses on deciphering the shipping marks, based on a survey of historic texts, including treatises on forestry, merchants' guides, trade journals and construction handbooks. The gathering of this historical knowledge provides the basis for an innovative decoding method, which is illustrated through the deciphering of some of the recently recorded marks. The results of these investigations show that the Baltic shipping marks provide valuable information about the dating, origins and qualities of historic timber, as well as the economic actors involved in its trade. This research paves the way for further on-site investigations and a strengthened international collaboration that could improve and regularise the decoding of these inscriptions. |
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Language
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English
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Source (journal)
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Construction history : international journal of the Construction History Society. - Englemere, 1985, currens
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Construction History
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Publication
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Englemere
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2016
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ISSN
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0267-7768
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Volume/pages
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31
:2
(2016)
, p. 157-175
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ISI
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000386540600011
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