Skip to content
Pitt Rivers Museum
AboutHire the MuseumNewsletterUniversity of Oxford

1886.1.691.1

Eyeless needle or awl; of small bird bone.

1886.1.691.1

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
Eyeless needle or awl; of small bird bone.
Cultural groups
Inuit; Arctic
Inuit
Person
Field collector Frederick William Beechey
Field collector HMS Blossom
Field collector George Francis Lyon
PRM source Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Date / Period
Date made: Before 1826?, uncertain Date made: 1825-1826?, uncertain
Date collected
1825 - 1826
Acquisition information
Transferred: 11/03/1886
Materials and processes
Material Bird Bone
Dimensions
Length: max 117 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1886.1.691.1 Other numbers: 312 313
Research and responses

This object was examined by Jonathan King (MAA Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge). The visit took place 28/09/2015. [NC 23/11/2015]

Other three not found in 998. They are described as needles but are in fact awls. [?JN 1998]

This object does not appear in the list of Beechey objects in Collectors Miscellaneous XI 71 - 75 [AP 20/7/99]

This object is not listed in the list of items donated by Lyon in Collectors Miscellaneous XI Accession Book entry page 155 [AP 21/7/99]

Please note that there was no further information about Beechey on the Donor Index cards at the Ashmolean Museum, Department of Antiquities. [L.Ph 23/3/2004]

Research carried out ahead of potential display in C.9.A in 2009 (object ultimately not selected for display) - 'Tools used by women to make clothes: Traditional Arctic technology featured a strong tool-making culture that valued craftsmanship, ingenuity, and decoration. Many tools were made simply for making other tools. Men made them all, including their wives’ sewing equipment...This awl (puncture tool), is made of bone. Bone is easy to sharpen into pointed objects, but is also brittle and therefore breaks quite easily. [HA 15/05/2009]

Associated publications
This is one illustrated in Bockstocke.

Search terms: Tool, Textile, Awl, Needle Sewing Equipment

Further items to explore