Palinurus
The Living Force
Source (Dutch only): Eeuwenoud beeld van krijger duikt op tussen garnalen bij Texel
From: Eeuwenoude 'krijger' duikt op tussen de garnalen: "Een topstuk, een juweel!"
Mike Bakker, Victor Ayal and Thijs ten Bokkel of the WR22 managed to keep the 'warrior' on board - Private photo
In cooperation with NH-News
NOS News - today, 16:17
Who recognizes this sculpture that the fishermen of the WR22 fished up from the bottom? - Image: Victor Ayal
Ancient statue of warrior turns up among shrimp near Texel
Fishermen made a unique find yesterday off the coast of Texel. While fishing for shrimp, a piece of wood came along that turned out to be an ancient statue. According to archaeologists, it is a "rare masterpiece" and "a jewel".
Fisherman Victor Ayal is still impressed by it. "We get thousands of pieces of wood on board. There were only two seconds between that and I would have thrown it overboard. That was until a face looked at me," he tells NH-News (in Dutch). It turned out to be the piercing eyes of a man with a mustache and a hat. They were on a wooden sculpture that was about 30 by 40 centimeters in size.
According to archaeologist Michiel Bartels of the maritime museum Kaap Skil on Texel, this is probably a statue from the 16th or 17th century. "It is a warrior wearing a Phrygian hat. That hat was a symbol of freedom from slavery in Roman times. That symbolism was also used during the period of the Eighty Years' War," he explains.
The Phrygian hat is a soft cone-shaped headgear whose top points forward and falls down a bit. The Phrygians lived in the area that is now part of Turkey and were a mountain people enslaved by the Romans. When they were freed from slavery, they wore a Phrygian cap.
Presumably this is a kaag-piece, an end piece of a fence on the starboard or port side of a ship, says Bartels. He would like to do research to find out exactly how old the sculpture is and what colors it had. "Possibly there are pigment residues in the folds, because these kinds of statues were always completely painted."
Unique find
According to Bartels, the find is very unique. "It doesn't happen that often that a statue comes to the surface from the Wadden Sea in such a pristine condition. Usually naval shipworms (Teredo Navalis) have chewed it to pieces," says the archaeologist.
Ayal has also never found anything like it before. "Often we retrieve bones, mammoth teeth or wooden pulleys from the VOC era, but I have never encountered anything as special as this."
Where the sculpture will eventually end up is not yet clear. In principle, fishermen are allowed to keep their finds. They only have a reporting obligation and that has been fulfilled.
As far as Ayal is concerned, the sculpture goes to the Kaap Skil museum on Texel. "My intention is not to make money with it. Eventually, if it gets a nice spot at Kaap Skil, nicely preserved, that's fine and then we can look at it again." For now, he has placed the sculpture in an eel tank with seawater, to keep it well preserved.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
From: Eeuwenoude 'krijger' duikt op tussen de garnalen: "Een topstuk, een juweel!"
Mike Bakker, Victor Ayal and Thijs ten Bokkel of the WR22 managed to keep the 'warrior' on board - Private photo