An Examination of Sanitation and Hygiene Habit Artifacts Found Aboard Vasa Health, Sanitation, and Life at Sea in Seventeenth-Century Sweden

Abstract

Vasa was a 64-gun Swedish warship in the service of King Gustav II Adolf (r. 1611 – 1632). The vessel sank on its maiden voyage in 1628, taking at least 16 of the approximately 150 persons on board to the depths of Stockholm Harbor. Amongst the cannon, figureheads, and skeletons were a collection of artifacts that can tell us about health and hygiene aboard Vasa. These artifacts include chamber pots, glass bottles, wooden enema nozzles, combs, and the ship’s heads. This project seeks to examine the sanitation and hygiene artifacts recovered from Vasa and place them into the larger background of sanitary practices in Europe in the seventeenth century.