Page 145 - Kennemerland VOC ship, 1664 - Published Reports

The International Journal qf Nautical Archaeology (1991) 20.I : 13-22
Some mid 17th-century golfclub heads found during underwater excavations and their significance for the study of the early history of the game of golf
Robert StCnuit
Groupe de Recherche Archhologique, Sous-Marine Post-Midihvale. 6 square de Biarritz, Bte 19, 1050 Bruxelles, Belgium
Introduction
'Unidentified objects' are found on most wreck sites and often end up gathering dust in vaguely labelled cardboard boxes long after the exca- vator has given up consulting experts in vain. Nevertheless, unidentified objectscan be themost important of all finds since the simple fact of their remaining unidentified points to an area of gen- eral ignorance. Thereby, they justify the most obstinate post-excavation research. Further- more, the discovery of such objects can open new avenues of research or contribute to a better understanding of fields not directly connected with early navigation and trade or with naval warfare, etc.['l. This may in turn considerably widen the global relevance of underwater archaeological excavations and their practical usefulness, both to scholars who specialize in unexpected fields of research and, more important still, to the educated public in general.
The following presents an example ofeventual identification and interpretation of some artefacts recovered many years earlier.
Background
In 1971,in the waters of Shetland, the writer and a team of the Groupe de Recherche Archeologi- que Sous-Marine Post-Medievale (GRASP), located, studied and excavated the scattered wreckage of the Lasrdrager, a VOC fluitschip, lost in 1653off the north-east coast of the Isle of Yell whilst on her way to Batavia (Stenuit, 1974;
1977). Mentioned in the excavation reports only as '. .. other fragments of cast brass .., brass supportsetc...thatcouldhavebeeneitherfrom cargo items or ships stores . . .' were four arte- facts which, to the present embarrassment of this
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writer, were left to sleep for over 15 years in a cardboard box labelled 'Cauldron feet'.
For a considerable part of the same period, five similar artefacts that had been recovered in 1978 from the wreck of another outgoing Dutch East Indiaman, the Kennemerland, lost in 1664, were similarly remaining unidentified. (Price & Muckelroy, 1978; 1979). Only in 1987, while listening to a paper by Christopher Dobbs, did this writer learn that the Kennemerland artefacts were golfclub heads and, at the same time, grasped the identity of the similar baffling arte- facts from the Lastdrager. The belated identifi- cation of some of the oldest golfclub heads now extant has prompted their detailed study as relics of the early days of a game that is practiced worldwide today and is a social and economic element of modern life.
Description
The corfslofen or club heads
Thefourclubheadsorironsarethelowerpart of golf clubs of which the wooden shaft is now wanting (Figs 1 and 2). They were found well grouped in squares B7-B8 of the excavated area (Stenuit, 1974: 220). All pieces are cast hollow shells similar in shape and made of a metal with a green patina. The end is sharply triangular in section with a flat bottom considerably shorter than the two vertical sides. In the middle, the top edge or upper angle is somewhat blunt, or almost flattened. The profile of the top edge is concave, not unlike a clog. Their name in Dutch: CorfslojEenmeans golf slippers.
There are two sizes: large (approximately 99mm) nos 15, 16, and 17 in Table I; small, (approximately 91 mm) no. 18. All four contain
0 1991 The Nautical Archaeology Society