Page 163 - Kennemerland VOC ship, 1664 - Published Reports

C. T. C. DOBBS AND R. A. PRICE: THE KENNEMERLAND SITE, AN INTERIM REPORT
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Front face of golf-clubhead 78-K-49.
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Figure 9. Golf-clubhead 78-K-49viewed from above.
board the vessel. This implies they were being carried as official or private items of trade rather than as part of the luggage of a colonial and intended for his own use. 78-K-49 gives a better idea of the original angular shape of the club heads than the other eroded examples, and its similarity to the club in Romeijn de Hooghe’s engraving (Stenuit, 1991: Fig. 3) is striking.
A further observation is that three of the Kennemerland clubs were intended for left- handed play and two for right-handed play (Fig. 11). The writers have not found any published reference to early golf clubs used for left-handed play. Early paintings invariably show right- handed clubs, whilst the left-handed clubs shown in many engravings, plaques and tiles occur because the engraver has copied a painting and the image is reversed on printing.
The 1987 excavation
The golf club heads were found in the course of a wide-ranging search programme during the 1978 season, in an area some 50 m north of the main site where systematic total excavation had been taking place. Muckelroy (1976) suggested that
Figure 8.
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Figure I 1.
Figure 10.
End view 78-K49.
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A comparison of left- and right-handed club heads. viewed from above.
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the ‘scrambling devices’, which include the movement of objects once they have been deposited on the seabed by a shipwreck, might not be as powerful as one would suppose. The concentration of these clubs in one area may bear this out. For this reason it was felt import- ant to excavate this area with the same thorough- ness as had been applied to the main site. The aim was to find out what other artefacts were contained in the deposits in that area and shed lightonhowtheycametobeisolated,yetsoclose together. The area concerned consists of a wide table of rock with some sand patches amongst
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