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These Inuit iron and stone-tipped harpoon heads are catalogued as
coming from the Davis Straits between Greenland and Canada. The
detachable head is stylistically of Greenland or Central Inuit (Eskimo)
type. The approximately triangular head is of cetacean bone or ivory.
One is tipped with a triangular flat iron point riveted into a slot
cut in the top with a bone peg, the other has a polished slate tip.
The leather line is about 13m long and attached to the bone head
with a loop.
These
probably date to the 19th century and are similar to harpoons recently
found in bowhead whales killed by Inuit hunters over the last decade.
They indicate that bowhead whales can live for well in excess of
a 100 years, a fact backed up by measurements of the rate of change
of isomers of amino acids in whale eye lenses.
İSCRAN/Glasgow University
Metal & stone Inuit harpoon heads |
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