The Bullroarer Atlas

MUS2026-193 - archaeological find

Probably Tunumiit (attributed), Site D, Clavering Island, Northeast Greenland

Northeast Greenland - Clavering Island - North America - Arctic

Function not recorded

The Site D fragment, accession 17/9591 inked across the waisted blade end; two more fragments share the tray (Clavering Island, 1930).
The Site D fragment, accession 17/9591 inked across the waisted blade end; two more fragments share the tray (Clavering Island, 1930). Image source

The Ford-Bartlett expedition put Junius Bird ashore on Clavering Island in 1930, and from the frozen ground of the place he labelled Site D came a wooden bullroarer, carved and drilled for its cord — left, probably, by the Tunumiit who lived on this coast some time between 1600 and 1800. It was not alone: another blade came out of a stone-house ruin at Site C nearby. East Greenland's dry cold keeps wood for centuries, and with it the evidence that on the remotest inhabited coast of the Arctic, someone was swinging a roarer.

Object
Carved, drilled wooden bullroarer, probably AD 1600-1800; excavated at Site D on Clavering Island.
Function
Not recorded — an archaeological find; the record gives no use.
Map confidence
low - Clavering Island representative anchor for Site D (NMAI gives no coordinates); offset from NAAIN-016's Site C anchor to keep the two excavation contexts distinct on the map.
Source location
NMAI catalog 17/9591 (EDAN capture nmai-17-9591-clavering-site-d.edan.json)

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