Model Ships

To celebrate Cinco de Mayo we went and had coffee and doughnuts with our "old" friends this morning. Then we went to a Maritime Museum and saw a great exhibit on Ming Dynasty Treasure Ships and the great explorer Zheng He.

In the rest of the museum where many beautiful and amazing model ships. So were huge! To marvel at the intricate work check out this website.

My favorite part was the Prisoner-of-war ships. Here is their story:

During the several wars between France and England, seamen who were taken prisoner were confined, sometimes for many years, and in their boredom, sought relief by building ship models from scraps of wood and bone. This evolved into an art form and the models were sold to the public, which responded by supplying the prisoners with ivory so that the models would be all the more decorative. Rigging was made of human hair, horsehair, silk, or whatever other fine material could be obtained. For the most part, the models had carved wooden hulls covered with thin veneers of bone or ivory, and other parts of the model such as masts and spars were also carved from bone and ivory. To this day they remain highly sought after, valuable collectibles.

They were just amazing! I want to say thank again to the amazing Docent who taught us so much.