Mary Rose Museum

undefined, Solent News

The Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard houses the preserved remains of Henry VIII's warship, which sank in the Solent in 1545 during a battle with the French fleet and was raised in 1982 in one of the most ambitious marine salvage operations ever undertaken. The museum, which opened in its current purpose-built form in 2013, displays the ship's hull alongside over 19,000 artefacts recovered from the seabed. The museum is designed so that visitors can view the hull from multiple levels, walking alongside the ship as if looking at a cross-section. The artefacts, which include weapons, navigational instruments, personal belongings, musical instruments, and the ship's surgeon's kit, provide an extraordinarily detailed picture of Tudor naval life. The remains of the crew, including the ship's dog, have been studied to reveal information about diet, health, and origins. The raising of the Mary Rose was watched by an estimated sixty million television viewers worldwide and remains one of the landmark events in maritime archaeology. The museum is part of the National Museum of the Royal Navy and is a centrepiece of any visit to the Historic Dockyard.