This paper had the support of CHAM (NOVA FCSH / UAc), through the strategic project sponsored by FCT (UIDB/04666/2020).

1Several riverside contexts were identified during archaeological monitoring of the redevelopment of a building located between Largo Conde Barão and Boqueirão do Duro Street. The archaeological remains were discovered under a 19^th-century factory, in an area on the right bank of the Tagus River. This area appears in the city’s early iconography as a beach. By the end of the 14th century it was occupied by maritime activities, which intensified over the 15th and 16th centuries. In the 17th century the area was known as Ribeira da Junta do Comércio, a place for shipbuilding and ship repair activities controlled by companies trading with Brazil. In the mid-19th century, it was occupied by the Boa Vista landfill, a huge operation that aimed to reclaim land from the river and where numerous factories were set up (Sarrazola et   al. 2014, p. 111-116).

2The stratigraphic sequence observed during the archaeological intervention attests to the use of this space for maritime activities between the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries. The older contexts correspond to the occupation of an intertidal zone with raw material storage and a wharf built from reused ship timbers. The remains of a small abandoned boat and an assemblage of dismantled timbers placed on the beach also belong to this phase (Macedo et   al. 2017, p. 1916).

1. The ship’s elements

3Up to 108 ship elements were recovered from these contexts: four keels, three keelsons, three stems, a rudder, 13 floor timbers, nine futtocks, 13 hanging knees, a carling, four bilge pump pipes, a complete anchor stock and 24 hull planks (fig. 1).

4Some of these finds reveal interesting aspects about ship equipment that are unusual in the archaeological record. This is the case of a bilge pump pipe (BOQ17-005), consisting of a 7.08 m-long and 26-36 cm-wide piece with an octagonal section. The lower end has four channels, 4.5 to 5 cm wide and thick, through which the water was sucked in. Each channel had a square iron nail, measuring 1 cm that secured assembly, probably to the keelson.

5The cheeks are 42 cm long and 9.2 cm wide, the height varying between 10.5 and 14 cm. They are carved in the pump extension and the edges are rounded. The pump had a tube across its total length, 9.5 to 10.5 cm in diameter where the valves worked. On one side there is a round hole, 9 cm in diameter and filled with cork, for water drainage. On the other side there is a small groove, 6 m long, 3.5 cm wide and 1.5 cm deep, of unknown function. Similar pumps have been found on the 18th-century vessels San José and Las Animas (1733), Machault (1760) and Defense (1779) (Oertling 1996, p. 24-29), for example.

6Other pieces show different construction typologies and details. A keel component (BOQ17-075) is 10.45 m long, and presents sided dimensions between 28.2 and 29.4 cm, and moulded dimensions between 22.4 and 36.6 cm; one of the sides features a sequence of numbers from 1 to 11 and also some symbols, such as a half moon and a droplet. They are arranged at regular intervals of 60 cm and may correspond to marks for the sequential setting of the floor timbers, in a frame-first conception, as recorded, for example, on the keel of La Belle (Bruseth et al. 2017, p. 99-100 and p. 129-130).

7A sheathing plank (BOQ17-021) measuring 1.41 m in length, 25.8 cm wide and 3.4 to 3.6 cm thick, features more than 100 square iron nails. The nails have a shank dimension ranging from 0.5 to 1 cm square, and heads embedded in round countersinks. On the outer face there are numerous carpenter’s marks corresponding to punctures that form a quincunx pattern where the nails were supposed to be placed at intervals of about 5 cm. This large number of nails was intended to create a concretion layer, caused by the oxidation of the iron, which increased the watertightness of the ships. Parallels for this type of sheathing plank can be found in Dutch ships from the 17th and 18th centuries, such as Batavia (1629), Vergulde Draak (1656), Zuiddorp (1712) and Zeewijk (1727) (Duivenvoorde 2012, p. 242-246).

8A hull plank (BOQ17-067), 2.38 m long, 37 to 39.2 cm wide and 6.5 to 6.7 thick, holds approximately 65 square copper alloy nails, with a shank dimension of 0.5 cm, creating a pattern that corresponds to the setting of copper alloy sheets: the plank is fastened to the frames by three or four iron nails in each connection. These were square nails, measuring 1.5 to 2 cm, with round countersinks, suggesting a late 18^th century chronology. In fact, between 1780 and 1830, the iron nails used in the assembly of hull planks to frames were replaced by copper nails, since contact between the iron and copper provoked iron corrosion and weakened the structure (Staniforth 1985, p. 22-23).

2. Some remarks

9The Boqueirão do Duro area was a maritime space from at least the 18th century onwards. At an early stage, the river beach was a port area without relevant structures, and might also have been used as a shipyard for ship dismantling activities. In a second phase, probably in the second half of the 18th century, the area was profoundly transformed, receiving a large wooden structure perpendicular to the river, probably a wharf.

10Ship timbers were reused in the construction of this structure, including pieces of different elements with diverse construction features. The different typologies hinder their analysis as part of a ship structure, but it is possible to recognise a number of elements that are unusual in Atlantic shipwreck contexts, such as bilge pumps, some from large ships. Other elements seem to document external shipbuilding traditions, namely English or Dutch. Therefore, besides shipbuilding studies, these remains have considerable potential as a source for the analysis of the Lisbon riverfront, the archaeological site formation processes, and the management of end-of-life ships.