Tuesday, July 3, 2012

History: Leaving Your Mark

Above is a wall in a water basin behind English Harbor.  The site is on the Caribbean island of Antigua where the Royal Navy had a base throughout most of the 18th century.  Posted by Navy Records in the UK on their Twitter feed last Friday, this amazing picture shows graffiti left behind by sailors in port.  The approximate dating of this wall's scrawls and scribbles is between 1740 and 1780.

Leaving a little bit of themselves behind, a few anonymous seamen have also left us a remarkable and invaluable treasure.  And that is our good fortune indeed.

Header: Sailors' graffiti c 1740-1780 via Navy Records UK


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5 comments:

  1. Timmy!July 3, 2012 at 4:02 PM

    Ye olde taggers, Pauline...

    ;-)

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  2. PaulineJuly 3, 2012 at 4:44 PM

    Good one!

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  3. Charles L. WallaceJuly 8, 2012 at 4:01 PM

    haha! Ya know, I sailed into Mina Qaboos, the port in Muscat, Oman, quite some time ago.... (1988, if'n I recollect correctly ;-)

    The breakwater was comprised of concrete shapes which reminded me of Kibbles n Bits.... at the very end of the jetty on the water side, there was a "Y" shape, inverted, so there were two "legs" pointing downward, and the stem, or trunk, pointed upward.

    Some wag had tagged it: painted "panties" on the trunk, with "hosiery" on the legs, and what I know as "shirt stays" connecting the twain. Hilarious!! and, probably, risky (if caught!)

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  4. PaulineJuly 8, 2012 at 5:49 PM

    Oh, that is a really cool addition to this post. Thank you once again, Wally!

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  5. Charles L. WallaceJuly 9, 2012 at 12:26 AM

    You're welcome!
    Wish I had taken photographs, but alas, only words to paint the picture ;-)

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