Page 213 - The Secret Museum

IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO MISS THE Vasa Museum in Stockholm. If you go down to the

beautiful waterfront of the city, you’ll see the masts of the only surviving seventeenth-
century wooden warship in the world, sticking out of the top of the museum built
especially to house it. That is Vasa. I’m not very into boats, and definitely not in any
way into war, but I like the museum because, stripped of all its colours and
beautifully lit, Vasa looks majestic, more like a piece of art than a warship.

The ship is lavishly carved, decorated with all kinds of images to impress the
enemy and to appease the weather gods. There are lions holding the Swedish coat of
arms, fruit to symbolize plenty, the figure of Hercules and the heraldic symbol of the

Vasa dynasty of Swedish kings. ‘Vasa’ is the Swedish word for fasces, which means
‘bundle of sticks’. Mussolini’s Fascists took their name from the same word, and as a
symbol used a bundle of sticks and an axe. An image of King Gustav II Adolf of
Sweden with his arms outstretched, who reigned at the time and commissioned Vasa,
is carved into the stern of the ship.

As a work of art it is a masterpiece but as a warship it was a disaster. You can
see the entire distance it ever sailed from the roof of the museum. The day Vasa left
Stockholm’s harbour, bound for the navy’s summer fleet base out in the Swedish

archipelago, it sank in full view of the city just 1,200 metres into its maiden voyage.
The top of the mast was visible above the water, just as it is now visible poking out
of the roof of its current home. British and Danish spies who had come to investigate
the warship reported back that it now lay stuck in the mud of the harbour. Several
people on board were killed – 15 skeletons were recovered from the wreck. Ten of
these are on display, which I thought was weird, but, apparently, kids love to see

them.
Vasa remained in the mud for 333 years. Then, in 1961, the ship was raised, with

the assistance of the navy and a commercial salvage firm. The water inside the wood
of the ship was replaced with a waxy chemical – now commonly added to cheap
milkshakes, chocolate and cosmetics – which stabilized the wood so that the boat
didn’t turn to dust as it dried out. If you look closely at the ship, you can see the white
wax dripping along its sides. When I touched it, it felt as though it had been dipped
into melted candle wax.

A lot of Swedes think that, when they were kids, they climbed on board the ship.
Fred Hocker, director of research at the museum, who showed me around, said, ‘I’ve

lost count of the number of people who’ve told me they’ve been on board, but really,
they haven’t, it’s just that when Vasa was in its first museum building, the platforms
were arranged so it felt as though you were on board. You can’t really trust people’s
memories, to tell the truth. They remember what they think they saw.’

The reality is that very few people have ever been allowed on board. The museum
is in a part of Stockholm that is still owned by the king: if he wants to bring anyone
on board, he can, of course. He usually brings visiting heads of state. A trip below
decks is also offered to Nobel Prizewinners, as a bonus, if they’d like to have a look.