Going ballistic! Science meets conservation on The Mary Rose

Major advances into how to protect and preserve a huge haul of cannonballs found on Henry VIII's flagship vessel The Mary Rose, have been made through a ground-breaking partnership between UCL, The Mary Rose and Diamond Light Source. The Mary Rose is a famous Tudor ship that sank in 1545 and was raised from the sea in 1982, when 1,200 cannonballs were discovered. The cannonballs have been at risk of disintegrating because chlorine in seawater is very damaging to iron, particularly when exposed to air. The combination causes corrosion that eats away at the metal and weakens its structure. Initially researchers attempted to remove chlorine from the cannonballs, but this did not successfully prevent disintegration when they were put on display. To better understand this, Dr Eleanor Schofield, Head of Conservation at the Mary Rose Trust, established a research project working with PhD student Hayley Simon, from UCL Archaeology and Diamond Light Source, to understand what was going on inside the cannonballs. "We wanted to find a way to preserve the cannonballs for future generations to come.