{"id":"HOLTVED1944-001","label":"Old Thule baleen whale blade","people_or_site":"Old Thule (Umanaq / Uummannaq), House 1, Wolstenholme Fjord","country_current":"Greenland (Denmark)","historic_region":"Thule District / Avanersuaq, northwest Greenland","macroregion":"North America / Arctic","local_name":"","source_term":"curious object (unidentified baleen)","source_language":"English","object_description":"Baleen blade cut to a whale outline, about 22 × 5 cm (scaled from the published photograph): a shallow V-cleft fluke end, a narrow waist, and a body widening to a rounded end pierced by one central hole; edges carefully rounded; a crack runs from one margin into the hole. Nationalmuseet L3:2927.","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"archaeological_find","source_key":"holtved1944_thule_district_l3_2927","source_type":"archaeological_report","source_url":"https://tidsskrift.dk/meddrgroenland/article/download/166458/207577/370623","page_or_plate":"Holtved 1944 I, p. 298, Fig. 108.2; Nationalmuseet L3:2927","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"candidate_only","coordinate_basis":"Holtved's site position for the Old Thule settlement (c. 76°34′N, 68°50′W, Holtved 1944 I p. 110); a settlement anchor, not the House 1 position.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Someone at Old Thule cut this strip of baleen into a whale: two flukes at one end, a slim tail stock, a body swelling to a blunt rounded head, and one hole drilled through the head. It lay in House 1, a cloverleaf winter house on Wolstenholme Fjord whose floor layer was thick with baleen, left by Thule whale hunters some five or six centuries ago. On the far side of the Inuit world, at Point Barrow, a baleen whale of exactly this cut, pierced at the head, was a bullroarer, imigdlugtaoq, and the instrument's name runs in one form or another from Alaska to East Greenland.","pull_quote":"another curious object with a shallow cleft in one end, the other end rounded with a central hole; the object is carefully made with rounded edges.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Holtved 1944 I:298","term_gloss":"","cls":"unknown","class_label":"Function not recorded","color":"#6B7884","is_candidate":true,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"f_archaeology":true,"archaeology_kind":"object","date_display":"c. AD 1400–1500","date_qualification":"House-level Thule d / Inugsuk attribution, provisional in the source; object not directly dated.","date_basis":"cultural_phase","date_confidence":"low","date_citation":"holtved1944_thule_district_l3_2927, Holtved 1944 I p. 114 (House 1 finds L3:2739–2936); II pp. 39–42","sources":[{"citation":"Erik Holtved, Archaeological Investigations in the Thule District I, Meddelelser om Grønland 141:1 (Copenhagen, 1944), pp. 113–114, 297–298, Fig. 108.2","url":"https://tidsskrift.dk/meddrgroenland/article/download/166458/207577/370623"},{"citation":"Erik Holtved, Archaeological Investigations in the Thule District II, Meddelelser om Grønland 141:2 (Copenhagen, 1944), pp. 39–42","url":"https://tidsskrift.dk/meddrgroenland/article/download/166456/207576/370621"},{"citation":"Therkel Mathiassen, Archaeological Collections from the Western Eskimos, Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition 1921–24, vol. 10:1 (Copenhagen, 1930), p. 48, Pl. 11.10","url":"https://archive.org/details/archaeologicalco0000math"}],"source_citations":"Erik Holtved, Archaeological Investigations in the Thule District I, Meddelelser om Grønland 141:1 (Copenhagen, 1944), pp. 113–114, 297–298, Fig. 108.2; Erik Holtved, Archaeological Investigations in the Thule District II, Meddelelser om Grønland 141:2 (Copenhagen, 1944), pp. 39–42; Therkel Mathiassen, Archaeological Collections from the Western Eskimos, Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition 1921–24, vol. 10:1 (Copenhagen, 1930), p. 48, Pl. 11.10","source_display":"Erik Holtved, Archaeological Investigations in the Thule District I, Meddelelser om Grønland 141:1 (Copenhagen, 1944), pp. 113–114, 297–298, Fig. 108.2; Erik Holtved, Archaeological Investigations in the Thule District II, Meddelelser om Grønland 141:2 (Copenhagen, 1944), pp. 39–42; Therkel Mathiassen, Archaeological Collections from the Western Eskimos…","date_citation_display":"Holtved 1944 I p. 114 (House 1 finds L3:2739–2936); II pp. 39–42","object_display":"Baleen blade cut to a whale outline, about 22 × 5 cm (scaled from the published photograph): a shallow V-cleft fluke end, a narrow waist, and a body widening to a rounded end pierced by one central hole; edges carefully rounded; a crack runs from one margin into the hole. Nationalmuseet L3:2927.","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"archaeological find","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"old thule","display_name":"Old Thule baleen whale blade","image":{"full":"assets/objects/hunt_2026_10_19/HOLTVED1944-001_L3-2927.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/hunt_2026_10_19/HOLTVED1944-001_L3-2927_thumb.jpg","alt":"Dark baleen blade shaped like a whale, with a forked tail at right and a round hole near the broad rounded head at left.","credit":"Erik Holtved, Archaeological Investigations in the Thule District I (Meddelelser om Grønland 141:1, 1944), fig. 108.2; Nationalmuseet L3:2927","source_page":"https://tidsskrift.dk/meddrgroenland/article/download/166458/207577/370623","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Baleen blade L3:2927 from Old Thule, cut as a whale: flukes at right, hole at the head.","additional":[{"full":"assets/objects/hunt_2026_10_19/HOLTVED1944-001_fig108.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/hunt_2026_10_19/HOLTVED1944-001_fig108_thumb.jpg","alt":"Period photographic plate of twenty numbered baleen objects: strips, winders, a coil and a whale-shaped blade.","credit":"Erik Holtved, Archaeological Investigations in the Thule District I (1944), fig. 108","source_page":"https://tidsskrift.dk/meddrgroenland/article/download/166458/207577/370623","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Holtved's plate of Thule baleen objects; the whale blade is no. 2."}]},"slug":"holtved1944-001-old-thule-umanaq-uummannaq-house-1-wolstenholme-fjord"}