All the objects found during Vasa’s excavation were registered by archaeologists in a find ledger. Here, the type of object was noted, what material it was made of, its dimensions, find location, date and sometimes a sketch.
At the top right of each page is a preprinted number, an individual find number that identified the object. Each object was also marked with a find tag with the same number. Vasa’s number series runs from 1 – 44020.
The find ledgers contain the core information for all subsequent work with Vasa’s collections. Today when we work with an object, we refer back to the information in the ledgers and add more detailed documentation.
We are fortunate in being able to work under more comfortable conditions than the archaeologists, who were on board the ship during the excavation, often covered in mud and sediment and rained upon!
Today, all the information in the find ledgers is transcribed into our database.
