ARKHANGELSK, July 21. /TASS/. The biggest ever fragment of a Pomor ship's side was found in Arkhangelsk. The ship was stitched, not built, the Northern Maritime Museum's Director Evgeny Tenetov told TASS. The side board is made of split planks connected with spruce branches.
"The biggest ever piece of a Pomor ship's side was found in Arkhangelsk. Pine planks, spruce twigs. The top is 90 cm, the bottom is 153 cm, the right side is 98 cm, and the left side is 80 cm. The kokora is 2.3 meters long," he said.
Kokora is the part of a pine or spruce trunk with a large lateral root located at an angle to the trunk. Kokora was used to make the vessel's base.
The fragment was discovered by specialists of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Archaeology during archaeological works in downtown Arkhangelsk. The find was given to the Northern Maritime Museum.
The side boards of 6-7 centimeters thick and 23 centimeters wide are stitched with spruce twigs. Experts could see that the boards were not sawn, they were chipped. That is, the log was not sawed, it was split with wedges, and then obtained boards were hewn with an axe. Given the thickness and width of the found boards, the vessel could have been up to 25 meters long. Invited experts, Sergey Kukhterin of the Northern Archeology Company, and Pavel Filin, Deputy Director of the Arctic Museum and Exhibition Center, Candidate of Historical Sciences, have initially dated the find to the 17th century.
