[BITList] The "Dirk Hartogh Plate"

[David Harvey]

There's a replica in the Fremantle Maritime Museum

Dave
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: John Feltham 
  Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 9:24 PM
  Subject: [BITList] The "Dirk Hartogh Plate"


  G'day folks,


  Some of you will be aware that I use an iMac computer.


  One of the perks that Apple users have are little applications called 'widgets'.


  One of these widgets that I employ, places behind my desktop everyday, a "painting or art object of the day" from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.


  Today's object is the "Dirk Hartogh Plate".


  It is of great interest to those of us who live in Australia. Read on.




  http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/images/aria/ng/z/ng-nm-825.z


  On 25 October 1616, the 'Eendracht' from Amsterdam, heading for Bantum, arrived here with chief merchant Gilles Mibais van Luik, skipper Dirk Hartogh, merchant Jan Stins and chief steersman Peter Dooke van Bill. This inscription covers the entire width of a pewter dish with a flattened edge. It is a modest reminder of the brief presence of the VOC ship 'Eendracht' on an island off the west coast of Australia. Terra Australis Incognita, the unknown southern land, as Australia was known to Europeans until well into the seventeenth century. Never before had Europeans set foot on the west coast. Dirk Hartogh and his crew were the first.


  Off course


  Dirk Hartogh was employed by the VOC as a skipper. During a voyage to Java in 1616, he and his ship the 'Eendracht' were blown off course. As a result, they came upon an island off the west coast of Australia. Hartogh decided to go ashore to explore the land he had discovered. Before weighing anchor to continue the voyage, he had a dish brought ashore. The dish was beaten flat, an inscription was added and it was then hung on a post. This made it the oldest surviving object of European origin on Australian soil.


  Object discovered


  In 1696 the VOC in Batavia equipped an expedition to explore and chart the west coast of Australia. During this voyage of exploration, in 1697, the skipper Willem de Vlamingh called at the island where the crew of the 'Eendracht' had gone ashore. Lying beside a post, Michiel Bloem, De Vlamingh's chief steersman, found the dish which Hartogh had left behind 80 years before. The dish, half covered in sand, was taken back to Batavia and from there to the Netherlands. So it was that the Hartogh dish, which had left the Netherlands as a household utensil, returned to its country of origin as a historic relic.






  ooroo


  If you don't hear the knock of opportunity - build a door.


  Anon.








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