- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Piece of iron, flat, roughly rectangular, one end narrower that the other. [El.B 29/03/2012]
- Geographical reference
- Qaasuitsup Baffin Bay Cary Islands
- Person
- Field collector Clements Robert Markham
- Field collector HMS Assistance
- Field collector Allen William Young
- Field collector HMS Pandora
- PRM source Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
- Date / Period
- Date made: Before 1875, uncertain Date made: 1875-1876, uncertain Archaeological period: Thule Culture
- Date collected
- 1851 or 1875-1876
- Acquisition information
- Transferred: 1969
- Materials and processes
- Material Iron Metal, Process Forged (Metal)
- Dimensions
- Width: max 65 mm, Length: max 143 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1969.34.660 Other numbers: 14
- Research and responses
Attribution to Thule Culture by Bjarne Gronnow, University of Copenhagen, 19 Feb 1993.
It is possible that this is part of an assemblage collected by Clements Markham, of HMS Assistance, from the Cary Islands in 1851. Allen Young was in close communication with Markham during the voyage of HMS Pandora in 1875-1876, and could have obtained this item from Markham then. In his published acount, Young clearly explains the discovery by Markham in 1851 (including the 'stone fox trap'), and does not mention similar discoveries on his own expedition. See notes below [Dan Hicks 13/07/2012]
In his account of Two Voyages of the Pandora, in 1875 and 1876 (1879, London: Edward Stanford), Allen Young (Commander of the expedition) describes naming a harbour Pandora Harbour, "as this was the first ship that ever anchored in it". (p. 130). It appears to be located to the south of Foulk Fjord and Hartstene Bay. It is possible that is is located in the Cary Islands [Dan Hicks 13/07/2012].
In a footnote on page 32 of the same book, Young describes the discovery of archaeological remains by Mr Markham at the Cary Islands:
"The Cary (not Carey) Islands were discovered by William Baffin on the 8th of July 1616, and he named them after one of his patrons, Mr Allwin Cary, of the family of Lord Hunsdon. Sir John Ross sighted them on the 20th of August 1818. The 'Assitance' and 'Resolute', on their return voyage, after a heavy gale of wind, sighted the Cary Islands on the 21st of August, 1851, and a cairn was observed on one of the most conspicuous heights of the NW island. A boat was sent to examine it, in charge of Mr Clements Markham, then a midshipman in HMS Assistance, and it was found to consist of a pile of stones, with an upright piece of spruce deal 5 feet long and 5 inches broad. The letters - I-I M-RD, with the date 1827, were cut on one side, and on the other TM-DK, nearly obliterated. Fourteen whalers were to the northwards of the Cary Islands in 1827, and most probably one of them left this cairn. The cairn was built up higher, and a record was deposited in the tin case discovered by the "Pandora" in August 1875.
"The Cary Islands are in 76-45' N and 72-50' W. Five of them are a mile and a half to two miles in diameter, three smaller, besides detached rocks. The formation is gneiss, rising to a height of 400 feet above the sea, and there is a rich growth of Cochlearia Groenlandica and other Arctic plants. The cliffs are breeding places for loom, dovekeys, and rotches, of which the officers of the Assistance shot 900 during August 22. Mr Markham also found ancient remains of Eskimos, consisting of stone huts, cachés, graves, and a stone fox-trap. (See an account of the Cary Islands at p. 335 of the 'Aurora Borealis', the Arctic newsletter issued on board HMS Assistance in 1850-51, and published by Colborn and Co. in 1852)'. (Young 1879: 32, note 1). [Dan Hicks 13/07/2012]
Markham's full name - Clements Markham - is given on page 36 of the same volume. http://openlibrary.org/books/OL24228777M/ [Dan Hicks 13/07/2012]
Search terms: Tool, Unidentified Object, Knife