Whaler cap

Headpieces

Personal stripes
They must have suffered from the cold, the Dutch whalers who sailed in the area of Spitsbergen around 1700. An island group north of Norway. Their clothing was totally unprepared for the harsh conditions, discovered PhD student Sandra Comis. Originally these adventurers wore hats, but soon they realized that a knitted cap was more practical. In 1980, archaeologists investigated the graves of 185 Dutch men who died in or near Spitsbergen in the seventeenth century: whalers and workers of the whale oil factories. The skeletons still had their caps on. These were personal: one could only recognize each other by the striped pattern of the cap. Because of the harsh cold, the men were thickly wrapped in clothes, so only their eyes were visible.

Image: Netherlands, c. 1700-1800. © Collection Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

 

 Tweet