Skip to content
Pitt Rivers Museum
AboutHire the MuseumNewsletterUniversity of Oxford

1940.8.011

Steel for strike-a-light, rectangular with rectangular perforation, with leather thong. [El.B 10/12/2007]

1940.8.011

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
Steel for strike-a-light, rectangular with rectangular perforation, with leather thong. [El.B 10/12/2007]
Geographical reference
Finland
Europe > Northern Europe > Finland
Lapland
Cultural groups
Saami
Date / Period
Date made: Before 09/1873
Date collected
1 September 1873
Acquisition information
Loaned: 1940
Materials and processes
Material Steel Metal, Material Animal Leather Skin, Process Perforated
Dimensions
Length: max 72 mm without thong
Object numbers
Accession number: 1940.8.011 Other numbers: 1927.6620
Research and responses

Research Notes - It has been established by Philip Grover that this is a piece of steel - a 'strike-a-light', used with a flint to produce sparks - which was collected by Arthur Evans in 1873 from a Saami man, Johanninpoika Marataja, a resident of Hammasjarvi or Suolajarvi in Finnish Lapland. Johanninpoika Marataja was hired as a local guide by Arthur Evans' travelling party as they neared Lake Inari, and they were with him from 31 August (when they met him at Suolajarvi) to 1 September (when they left him at Lake Inari). In his journal of the voyage Evans describes the appearance of Johanninpoika Marataja, and mentions purchasing 'a bit of the roughest steel' from him on 1 September 1873: 'At our noonday halt got the G. I. to sit for his likeness - his general rig is not very unlike a Wallach[']s - leather belt, coarse sack cloth tunic but with a high collar of divers[e] colours [...] & which is the distinguishing feature of the Lapp tunic - his legs closely swathed in the same ragged sacking - dull bands wound about above the boot which is like the Finnish saba, but only got up to the ankle - From his belt hangs a very long knife in leather sheath, & he lights his pipe with a flint of peculiar shape, & a bit of the roughest steel [drawing of flint and steel] with a perforation in the middle by which to attach it to a thong of leather - both which I have succeeded in getting from him for a consideration[.] On his head a dull subconical cap' (entry dated 1 September 1873): Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Sir Arthur Evans Archive, B/2/1, Box 1, Notebook 2, pp.59-60. The associated 'flint of the roughest shape' has not been identified. Evans also recorded the appearance of Johanninpoika Marataja in a photograph [1941.8.73] and two drawings [1941.8.86 and 1941.8.96]: Philip N. Grover, 'Note on a Flint and Steel' (see Related Documents File). [PG 06/062013]

For more information on Arthur Evans' voyage to Finnish Lapland in 1873, see Joan Evans, Time and Chance: The Story of Arthur Evans and His Forebears (London, 1943), pp.172-176; Ann Brown, Before Knossos...: Arthur Evans's Travels in the Balkans and Crete (Oxford, 1993), pp.14-16, 90; and Tony Lurcock, No Particular Hurry: British Travellers in Finland, 1830-1917 (London, 2013), pp.123-134, 250. A selection of drawings and photographs made by Arthur Evans during the voyage was displayed in 'Travels in Finland and Bosnia-Herzegovina: An Ethnographic Collection of Sir Arthur Evans', exhibition curated by Philip Grover, Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, 29 April to 1 September 2013 (see Related Documents File). [PG 06/06/2013]

Search terms: Fire, Tool, Fire Accessory

Further items to explore