16th International Symposium on Boat & Ship Archaeology

59 Zadar, Croatia | 26 September – 1 October 2021 Fred Hocker Vasa Museum, Stockholm, Sweden Taking a palace to sea: the great cabin on Vasa (1628) The great cabin on a capital warship was not simply the accommodation for the highest ranking officer on board, but also served as a formal reception space for visitors, an embassy, and a stage set for political theatre. Its location, configura- tion and decoration were intended to establish the power relationships between people entering it, and most importantly, to serve as the symbolic seat of the sovereign’s power. On Vasa , these functions are emphasized by how the space is configured and decorated, using costly imported materials and the highest quality workmanship, carried out by the joiners from the royal palace rather than the navy’s carpenters. They created a royal interior, the only one to survive from the reign of Gustav II Adolf, to emphasize the ship’s political function. This paper will present the results of a comprehensive project carried out to document the struc- ture, furnishings and decoration of the great cabin, and place the reconstruction of the interior into the broader context of warship interiors and the social organ- ization of space.