What shipwrecked insects reveal about life at sea in the 17th century
It was even more unpleasant than we thought
A great deal of romance attaches these days to the “Age of Sail”, the period between the 15th and 19th centuries when wooden sailing ships reached their technological apogee. Historians, however, have a less rosy view. The journals and logs that have survived from the era do not paint an especially pretty picture of conditions aboard.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Tides of filth”
From the May 6th 2023 edition
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