Five Caps from the Ice: Reading Dutch Whalers’ Knitted Headwear

What archaeology can—and cannot—tell us

The University of Groningen’s Arctic Centre carried out excavations on Spitsbergen between 1979 and 1981, investigating the remains of the Dutch whaling settlement of Smeerenburg and its surrounding landscape. Textile fragments were found in and around houses and the remains of blubber furnaces. The settlement operated from 1614 to around 1660, and the excavations also encountered clothing in graves. In 1980, researchers examined 50 graves at Zeeuwse Uitkijk; the Groningen thesis records 33 knitted caps among the finds, alongside other garments. Some graves could be dated to about 1650–1750 from the clothing. [1]

The Rijksmuseum’s shared description of the cap group gives a broader frame, referring to 185 Dutch whale hunters and refinery workers who died on or near Spitsbergen in the seventeenth century. The Groningen thesis gives a more specific count for one 1980 excavation at Zeeuwse Uitkijk. These figures refer to different descriptions and scales; the 33 caps from that excavation should not be casually treated as a complete count for every burial or every object now in the museum. The object records identify the caps by accession numbers, but do not connect each surviving cap to a named wearer or a particular grave. [2]

That gap is not a failure of the archive. It is the boundary of what the surviving evidence can support. We can compare wool, knitting structure, dimensions, colour and repair. We can place the objects within a larger archaeological collection and a broad date range. We cannot recover the wearer’s name, occupation aboard a particular vessel, or reason for choosing one colour from the cap alone.

Five caps, five constructions

NG-2006-110-8: a cap over a cap. This is the most technically revealing of the five. The Rijksmuseum describes an outer cap in red, green, blue, yellow and white stripes, lined with a coarser brown cap. The loose upper part falls over the lining like a nightcap. The outer layer is stockinette, knitted as a large flat piece, cut into two sections and sewn together. The catalogue records a gauge of 55 stitches and 100 rows per 10 centimetres. It is a reminder that historical knitwear was not always worked seamlessly in the round: knitted fabric could be cut and assembled with sewing. The broad date, about 1740–1760, belongs to this object, not to the whole cap group. [3]

NG-2006-110-6: blue and white with earflaps. This coarser cap is described as double-layered, knitted in the round in stockinette and fitted with earflaps. The museum calls the blue-and-white yarn “ikat” in its Dutch object description. That is the catalogue’s term; without further material analysis, it should not be expanded into a detailed claim about the exact dyeing process. Its record gives a broad date of about 1650–1800 and a circumference of 60 centimetres. The fit and lining show how warmth could come from construction as well as fibre. [4]

NG-2006-110-3: stripes that do not repeat evenly. Red, blue-green, black and pale-brown stripes vary in width across this double cap. The inner cap is striped too. The Rijksmuseum describes fine stockinette made from two pieces sewn together, with shaping at the top; its recorded gauge is 45 stitches and 40 rows per 10 centimetres. The catalogue assigns a broad date around 1700–1800 and identifies Spitsbergen as the place of manufacture. That is unusually specific provenance, but the maker remains anonymous. We can say where the museum places the work, not who knitted it. [5]

NG-2006-110-4: visible mending. The museum describes a fine wool cap with earflaps, a coarse light-brown inner layer and multicoloured stripes interrupted by angled square motifs. Several repairs remain visible. The object is dated about 1700–1800 and is made from two pieces sewn together. A repair is evidence of use and care, but it does not tell us how long the cap was worn, who repaired it or whether the work was done at sea, at a station or at home. The stitches let us recognise an intervention; the person behind it is not named in the record. [6]

NG-2006-110-12: green wool and a folded brim. This coarser green cap has earflaps and a broad folded brim decorated with dark-blue and light-brown stripes and rectangular blocks. Its museum date is broad—about 1600–1800—so it should not be assigned a more precise year simply because other pieces in the archaeological collection have narrower dates. The contrast between its solid green body and worked brim makes a restrained design feel deliberate. Like the other caps, it is anonymous. [7]

Across the five records, “knitted cap” does not describe one fixed pattern. Some are double-layered, some have earflaps, and several are assembled from panels. Gauge varies considerably. Stripes, blocks and geometric motifs occupy different parts of the garment. These are not enough pieces to reconstruct an entire regional knitting tradition, but they are enough to challenge the idea that a seventeenth- or eighteenth-century cap was necessarily plain, seamless or made by one standard method.

Clothing for work in the Arctic

The word “whaler” can make us imagine a uniform designed for one occupation. The Groningen research argues against that reading. The excavated clothing did not reveal a distinctive whaler’s outfit; the men wore ordinary winter clothing, layering garments against the cold. Wool survives in these conditions, while linen and cotton did not. That preservation fact matters: the absence of linen or cotton in this archaeological record does not prove the workers never wore them. It tells us what survived in the ground. [1]

The same research connects the cut of the garments to contemporary everyday fashion, made in simpler and less costly forms. The caps therefore sit at the meeting point of fashion and function. Earflaps, double layers and folded brims answer the cold; colour and shape remain part of a wearer’s appearance. Their practical qualities do not make them anonymous objects in the social sense, even when the museum catalogue cannot supply the knitter’s name.

Some of the men worked as whale hunters; others worked at the stations and in the rendering of blubber into oil. The Rijksmuseum’s label includes both groups in its description. That wider labour context matters because the caps were recovered with clothing from people who lived and died in a harsh working environment. A cap may protect a head, but its textile construction also records the availability of wool, the time invested in knitting and sewing, and the everyday knowledge required to make warm clothing useful far from home. [2]

Colour, repair and personal identity

The Rijksmuseum says the caps were individual and that the men could recognise one another by their patterns. That is an interpretation attached to the collection’s archaeological story, not a decoded pattern language. The surviving stripes do not provide a key to a wearer’s name, home town or rank. It is safer to read colour as evidence of difference and personal choice than to assign fixed meanings to each band.

NG-2006-110-4 offers another kind of evidence: repair. It is tempting to turn a visible mend into a story about one named person repairing a beloved cap, but the object record cannot support that. What it can show is that the cap was repaired, remained useful and carried more than its original knitting. The mend has become part of the textile’s history. For a knitter, this is a reminder that a garment’s life includes maintenance as well as making. [6]

NG-2006-110-8 asks a different technical question. Its outer layer was knitted flat, cut into two parts and sewn; the second cap supplied a lining. The object’s catalogue gauge lets us see how tightly the outer fabric was made, but it does not reveal whether the knitter followed a written pattern. Archaeologists found objects, not the lost instructions that may once have guided their makers. The most reliable reading combines the museum’s construction notes with close looking, while leaving unrecorded choices open. [3]

A short chronology

• 1614 to around 1660: the Dutch whaling station at Smeerenburg is active; textile fragments are later recovered from houses and industrial remains. [1]
• 1634–1635: seven whalers die during an attempted overwintering; textile remains are found in their graves. [1]
• About 1650–1750: clothing styles help date some graves at Zeeuwse Uitkijk; the Groningen thesis records 33 knitted caps among the finds. [1]
• 1979–1981: the University of Groningen’s Arctic Centre investigates Smeerenburg and other archaeological sites on Spitsbergen. [1]
• 1980: graves at Zeeuwse Uitkijk are examined; the Rijksmuseum’s cap collection is later catalogued and displayed as evidence of Dutch whalers’ clothing. [2]

Five caps cannot stand for every person who worked in the Arctic, every knitted garment worn there or every Dutch knitting tradition. Their value lies in their specificity. A double lining, an earflap, a stripe, a sewn seam and a repair are small details, but each opens a different question about warmth, material, construction and use. Read with the excavation research, the caps become more than colourful curiosities: they are surviving pieces of ordinary clothing from a demanding world of work.

Sources and image credits

1. Sandra Yolanda Comis, Excavated 17th- and 18th-century whalers’ clothing from Spitsbergen, University of Groningen, 2017.
2. “Woollen Caps Worn by Dutch Whalers,” NG-2006-110-8, Rijksmuseum collection and shared group history.
3. Object record NG-2006-110-8, Rijksmuseum.
4. Object record NG-2006-110-6, Rijksmuseum.
5. Object record NG-2006-110-3, Rijksmuseum.
6. Object record NG-2006-110-4, Rijksmuseum.
7. Object record NG-2006-110-12, Rijksmuseum.
8. Rijksmuseum data portal, for collection data and rights information.

Each Rijksmuseum object page identifies the work as Public Domain and provides the catalogue description used for the caption. The image links above are the collection’s image service; public-domain status and object attribution are repeated with each figure.