Clay pipe with bird bone stem collected by Adrian Dean, Macquarie Island, 1959

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Type: Animal parts, Smoking pipes
Date: 1870 - 1910
Place: Glasgow, Scotland; Macquarie Island Research Station, Macquarie Island, Tasmania, Australia, Oceania
Materials: Adhesive - non specific, Bone, Clay
Collection: National Antarctic Heritage collection
Accession number: 2024.0001.0387

Description

A pipe with a clay bowl and shank, and a bird bone stem. Impressed into the side of the bowl is 'BEN NEVIS / CUTTY'. The end of the shank is inserted into one end of a cream wing bone which has dark brown marks across the surface of the same end. The two pieces are secured with a clear adhesive. The inside and the rim of the bowl are stained dark brown.

This pipe was found in 1959 by ANARE expedition carpenter Adrian Dean at what was known to be a former sealing or penguin oilers' camp on Macquarie Island. At some point in its history, the stem has been replaced with a hollow bird's bone, probably found locally. Pipes of this design were originally manufactured with shorter stems, so that they could be more readily used by gripping the stem between the teeth. This reflects their association with manual workers whose employment relied on their ability to use their hands. The date of manufacture is uncertain, but could be between 1820s and 1910s, although around 1890s is most likely. It may be associated with an unknown sealer at Macquarie Island, likely during the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries. Whaling and sealing were the first commercial industries in Australia. Marine mammal oil was a valuable fuel on the global market, generally used for lighting. Fur seal skin fetched a high price in Europe and Asia and during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the fertile Southern Ocean held millions of the sea mammals. Sealing in Antarctic waters started on remote Macquarie Island not long after it was first mapped in 1810 by the British-born Australian sea captain Frederick Hasselborough. Within a decade, sealing gangs of many nationalities had decimated the island’s fur seal population and turned to harvesting the oils of the elephant seal and king penguin colonies. As at Macquarie Island, sealing gangs at subantarctic Heard Island quickly almost wiped out the island’s elephant seal population by the mid to late nineteenth century, killing the animals on the beach and flaying them for their blubber, which was then processed on site.

About the collection

This collection comprises approximately 600 objects acquired by the Australian Antarctic Division and its predecessors between the 1940s and 2010s. It includes scientific and communication equipment, navigation and cartographic equipment, specimens, commemorative objects, building fabric, field support vehicles, clothing and field work supplies relating to Australia’s long and distinguished tradition of research and exploration within the Antarctic region. These objects are the largest and most diverse assemblage of surviving material culture demonstrating Australia’s relationship with the subantarctic islands and Antarctic continent between the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. The collection offers remarkable natural and historical significance, notably nineteenth century commercial activities and the early twentieth century expeditions of Sir Douglas Mawson and other explorers that expanded scientific knowledge and laid the foundation for Australia’s enduring presence in the region. From the 1940s, the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions undertook major exploratory and scientific work to understand and protect the Antarctic landscape. Australia took a leading role in the International Geophysical Year and the negotiation of a comprehensive environmental protection regime for Antarctica with the establishment of the Antarctic Treaty System from 1959. It records how the Australian Antarctic Division continues to manage Australia’s interests in the Antarctic region, overseeing world-leading research at three permanent continental research stations - Mawson, Casey and Davis - and at subantarctic Macquarie Island.

Read live from the Museum's Collection API (12/11/2026, 5:06:12 am). Record last updated by the Museum 2026-10-14. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.