|
Silver Thimble Silver thimble #48457 was recovered from the Corrigans wreck site by the crew of the M/V Gold Duster during the 2001 salvage season.
Thimble: a small, bell-shaped implement designed to protect the top of the finger when sewing. Among the earliest known thimbles, dating from before AD 79, were those made of bronze and found at Pompeii and Herculanium. Thimbles can be made from almost any material, but modern ones are almost exclusively produced in plastic or soft metals. (from The Encyclopędia Britannica®, 15th Edition copyright ©1977 by Encyclopędia Britannica, Inc). These two definitions give a good idea of what a thimble is but little of the role an ornate thimble such as the one found by the crew of the Gold Duster from the Corrigans site might play in a larger cultural context. No simple definition can encompass what this small object signifies or more correctly signified to the person to whom it once belonged. This object is gender specific and I believe that it is safe to assume that a silver thimble such as this did not belong to a tailor, cobbler or sail maker. The feminine pastime of embroidery and needlepoint that this object represents also goes far back in antiquity. There are few objects from the shipwrecks that can be related to the female gender and those found should be reviewed with an eye toward a better understanding of the role of women aboard the vessel and in Spanish colonial society in general. There have been several other ornate thimbles recovered thought the years two Gold (see figures 37 and 38) and one Silver.
|
