Investigation of the wood of the 16th century sewer from the territory of the Vilnius Lower Castle and its preservation

Abstract

In 2008, during the archaeological investigation in the Vilnius Lower Castle, a wooden sewer was found in waterlogged layers. The sewer consists of a trough made from four longitudinal boards placed upon cut out sections of mudsills and covered by transversal boards. One section of the sewer, 8,6 m in length, was taken for conservation. Wood analysis has revealed that the covers were made from oak and the rest of the parts were from pine. The oak and pine parts were dendrochronologically dated. An 83 year long oak tree-ring series was dated to 1530 against English oak chronology of the Baltic origin BALTIC1; however, some external rings were missing. [...]