Saturday, April 18
Today was our last field trip of our stay in Oxford. We had been well prepped by Prof. Chapman's lecture about the thee historic ships we'd see at the historic dockyards: HMS Victory (18th c.), HMS Warrior (19th c.) and the Mary Rose, King Henry VIII's favorite ship (16th c.). The first two are incredibly well-preserved, and we spent hours walking on the decks of the Victory and seeing the very spot where Lord Nelson died just when the English declared victory at the Battle of Trafalgar. The Mary Rose was retrieved from the bottom of the ocean in 1982, with Prince Charles being a significant player in its story. We view it through glass, since it's in its 27th year of being washed for preservation purposes. What I find most interesting are the thousands of artifacts brought up with the ship, housed in a special museum. Everything from utensils to coins to clothing to syringes with which to inject mercury as a cure for syphilis (ouch) are displayed in this strange, haunted place.
My favorite exhibit, though, is in another building. It features gigantic figureheads from old ships, some beautiful but most bizarre and rather politically incorrect. Check out the photos.
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