Wound plug with incised decoration

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Description

walrus tooth, base

Wound plugs, such as this one, would have been used to plug up the hole in a wounded sea animal (seal or walrus) caused by a harpoon and to prevent precious blood to be draining or to have the animal drown.

Inuit have continued using these wound plugs for the same reasons. Wound plugs have been used by Arctic ancestors for over more than a millennium. The Okvik-Old Bering Sea (500 – 750 AD) already used wooden wound plugs and the usage was continued in the Punuk (800 – 1200 AD) and Thule cultures.

A comparable object published in Wardwell, 1986, p. 110, fig. 146.

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Comparing literature

Wardwell, Allen, "Ancient Eskimo Ivories of the Bering Strait", New York 1986, p. 110, ill. 146

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