Thinking Inside the Box

Abstract

A heavy and impressive chest — part of the museum collection of the city of Antwerp — served as a strongbox to securely store the city’s historical documents, including citizen privileges, public liberties, and responsibilities. A recent dendrochronological survey revealed that the tree-ring pattern of the lid dates to 1005–1294 CE, suggesting a felling date early in the 14th century. The Silver fir wood originated from the Vosges mountains in France, and hence was transported to the city of Antwerp that had already developed as an important trade centre along river Scheldt by the 13th century. The tree-ring pattern of the bottom plank could not be measured, but the presence of caulking material in some large cracks and metal clamps (sintels) revealed that this repurposed timber must have originated from a medieval ship. The archaeobotanical analysis of the mosses used as caulking material and of the pollen trapped in these mosses points toward two different locations where the ship was repaired, with at least one location outside the Low Countries. During the examination, a collection of wooden boxes stored inside the chest drew the attention. It was unclear whether the collection of boxes had any connection with the original content in the chest. Tree-ring dating on these wooden boxes made of oak and beech revealed their 14th to 16th century dating. Furthermore, inscriptions proved their relationship with historical documents. The combined dendrochronological, archaeobotanical, and historical examination demonstrates that this medieval chest was a privileged spectator of the city’s turbulent history.

Dendrochronological Dating of Northern Netherlandish Furniture from the Late-17th and Early-18th Centuries

“…The dating of furniture relies to a great extent on the interpretation of stylistic characteristics by art historians. Fortunately, dendrochronology has been demonstrated to be a valuable scientific method for determining the date and provenance of the wood of furniture objects such as chests, cabinets, and tables (Jansma et al 2004;Heginbotham & Pousset 2006;Klein et al 2014;Thun & Svarva 2016;Pickvance 2018;Domínguez-Delmás et al 2021c;Susperregi & Jansma 2021;Haneca et al 2023). In the case of oak, the widespread network of tree-ring reference chronologies of this species currently available for most of Europe facilitates this task.…”