Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
August 27, 1822
Primary Source Reference:
Peale Museum Accessions Book, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, p. 120
Additional Source Text:
"Lat 23 [degrees] 41' South, Long 160 [degrees] West"
Notes:
The nearest island to these coordinates seems to be Nihoa, now part of Hawaii. It had once been inhabited (at least one site has been dated to around the 1st millennium AD, sometime between 867 and 1037), but had long been abandoned, making its identification as the source of this artifact somewhat conjectural. Capt. James Colnett of the Prince of Wales, commanding a two-vessel fur trading expedition to the Pacific Northwest coast, Hawaii, and China, became the first Westerner to discover it on 21 Mar 1788.
