There’s a lot written about wrecks. Survivors might tell their stories, captains might make reports, or there may be official inquiries, newspaper articles and even books about the events.
When archaeologists study wrecks, they also write a lot about them. During an excavation, they keep field notebooks of their daily activities. Later on, they may publish academic papers about their discoveries.
Here are some parts of the notebooks from the field work on Batavia in the 1970s.
The only first-hand account of the Batavia tragedy comes from Commander Pelsaert’s journal. He didn’t want to be blamed for losing the ship, so his writing may have been a bit biased, but it does give us a lot of information.
It has been translated a number of times. Adriaan de Jong’stranslation from 2017 has been digitised. Scan the QR code on the sign to see it.
