Skip to content
Pitt Rivers Museum
AboutHire the MuseumNewsletterUniversity of Oxford

1899.82.5.13

Unfinished shell shank of fishing hook, from excavations at the central vault at Nan Madol.

1899.82.5.13

Digital asset copyright: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

Terms and Conditions

If you wish to order a high-resolution image and/or licence its use for print or web publication, exhibition, film, promotional product or any other use, whether in the academic or commercial sector of any print run, then please visit photographic services.

Collection type
Object
Description
Unfinished shell shank of fishing hook, from excavations at the central vault at Nan Madol.
Long description
Unfinished pearlshell fishing hook shank, from excavations at the central vault at Nan Madol. One of 31 stored in a clear-fronted museum box.
Date
Date collected
15 March 1899
Acquisition information
Purchased: 1899
Materials and processes
Material Pearl Shell, Process Carved
Dimensions
Width: max 23 mm, Length: max 49 mm, Weight 12 g
Object numbers
Accession number: 1899.82.5.13
Research and responses

For the vendor's own account of his 'excavation' of this material (1899.82.5.1-.37), see pages 85ff of The Caroline Islands: Travel in the Sea of the Little Lands, by F. W. Christian (London: Methuen & Co., 1899). In listing of the 'finds', Christian writes: 'Eighty pearl-shell shanks of fish-hooks in a more or less perfect condition, exactly resembling those used all over Polynesia before the coming of the white man. The hook itself was generally of bone, but we found some fragments of pearl-shell which were clearly relics of the barb.' [JC 17 2 2011]

Search terms: Fishing, Hook, Fishing Accessory

Further items to explore