de Vlamingh plate

Collection Highlights | Updated 1 decade ago

Willem de Vlamingh found the 1616 Dirk Hartog pewter plate at Cape Inscription, Shark Bay on 4 February 1697. Stress from flattening dinner bowls to create the plates predisposed them to corrode and crack. The Hartog text was copied and a new inscription recording the date of the discovery by de Vlamingh and his crew was stamped with letter punches into the metal. The recovered Hartog plate was taken to Batavia in Java and is exhibited at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. The de Vlamingh plate was attached to a wooden post with rectangular iron-planking nails. As the iron corroded the run-off caused differential corrosion reactions that help form the complex patina. The fallen plate was discovered by Hamelin in 1801 and attached to a new post. It was recovered by Louis de Freycinet in 1818 and eventually taken to Paris where it remained until given by the French people to the Australian government after World War II.

Knife blade impressions showed the plate had previously been in use on board de Vlamingh’s ship Geelvinck. Analysis at the Australian Synchrotron showed up the original metal structure in the outer rim while the flattened bowl had an altered structure that changed the way in which the two areas corroded. It also revealed that Hamelin had used arsenical bronze sheathing tacks to attach the plate to his post. Analysis of a tiny fragment of the plate strongly indicates an English origin of the tin and lead in the pewter alloy; Cornish tin and Derbyshire lead.

Maritime Archaeology Dutch Wrecks Gallery