The Mary Rose and the Flood

This morning on the Today programme there was an item about the 25^th anniversary of the raising of the Mary Rose from Portsmouth Sound, where it had sunk in 1545.

During the interview, John Humprhrys expressed surprise at the beautiful condition of some 19,000 objects found on the ship, including longbows, domestic equipment, jerkins, nit combs, bowls, shoes, plates, shoes and leather wrist guards. "Why is it all in such good condition? ... You'd have expected it all to have rotted wouldn't you, after all this immensely long time?"

The maritime archaeologist, Alexzandra Hildred, explained, "The view is that sediment went in through the open gun ports very quickly and sealed it ... sealing the objects below and completely excluding oxygen so they didn't disappear ... that's why she was preserved - covered in mud."

In other words, if the objects had not quickly been covered in mud they would not have survived so long. This is common sense.

On the other hand, most palaeontologists would have us believe that the wealth of striking fossils we find today - some retaining well-preserved soft tissue, including blood vessels - were gradually covered over hundreds or thousand of years as they rested on the sea bed, millions of years ago. This is plainly rubbish. Even after a few weeks or months, the carcasses would have completely rotted and the bones dispersed. Even if buried, such tissues would not be preserved for so long.

Only a moderately recent cataclysmic and world-wide event, such as the flood described in Genesis, can explain the excellent preservation of so many animal remains in so many parts of the world.