392 Thomas Thomsen. 



near Davis Straits to Holland, at any rate before 1633, and probably 

 considerably earlier. 



Failing, then, to find Cand. Thalbitzer's Copenhagen idols in 

 Olearius' work, we may proceed to seek for them in that of Schacht. 

 He however, evidently has his information from Olearius and no other; 

 he gives a reproduction of the wooden figure from the Gottorp Museum, 

 and quotes the substance of Olearius' report, not, it is true, the place 

 quoted by Mr. Thalbitzer, from the Persian journey, but that men- 

 tioned by Schacht himself; viz: Gottorfische Kunstkammer Tab. IV, 

 No. 5. The text here is as follows : "Num. 5. Ist ein Abgott der Nord- 

 länder bey der Straat Davis, umb welchen sie, wie die Grünländer, denen 

 ich es gezeigt, berichteten, herumb tantzen. Ist bekleidet mit räuchern 

 Schaaffell, Vogelfedern, und mit kleinen Zähnen von Fischen behangen. 

 Denn sie meynen, weil sie von den drey Elementen ihre Nahrung haben, 

 müssen selbige auch als Götter geehret werden; wie noch jetzo die Heyden 

 im Königreich Siam in Ostindien thun" etc. It will be noticed that 

 Olearius has here improved upon the former simple statement, by 

 adding his theory of the three elements. Schacht follows him faithfully 

 in this, and further declares the figure to be of Greenlandic origin, — 

 which is more than Olearius directly states — and proceeds, on his 

 own account, to draw comparisons with Priapus and other phallic deities. 

 Cand. Thalbitzer again, does not consider the phallic element suf- 

 ficiently pronounced in the figure in question, which induces him to 

 "draw the conclusion that he" — i. e. Schacht — "speaks of another 

 similar wooden doll in the Gottorp Museum" that is to say, one other 

 than that which he shows in his illustration; a somewhat daring 

 hypothesis. 



The next and last source is "The Royal Private-Museum, which was 

 for some time lodged at the Gottorp Castle" and "described by Jacobæus 

 in his Theatrum regium". 



It should here be noted that the title of the work in question is 

 "Museum Regium" and that the Royal Museum never was "lodged at 

 Gottorp". The Duke Frederik just referred to had there laid the foun- 

 dation of his own collection; under his successors, however, relations 

 between the ducal house of Gottorp and the King grew more and more 

 strained, until finally, in 1721, the Gottorp estates in Slesvig were ap- 

 propriated by the Crown. The Gottorp collection was subsequently, 

 (abt. 1750) removed to Copenhagen and included in the Royal Museum 1 . 



1 In David Murray's "Museums, their history and their use", Glasgow 1904, 

 Vol. 1, p. 96, we read: "The whole of the Gottorp collection ultimately 

 found its way to St. Petersburg, and was absorbed in the Imperial collec- 

 tion". Upon what grounds this assertion is based I do not know: it is a 

 fact, however, that in 1743, an "Inventarium ueber die Kunst- uud Naturalien 

 Cammer des Schlosses Gottorff", was drawn up at Gottorp Castle, the inven- 

 tory in question being a catalogue of the collection as transferred to Copen- 

 hagen, in the collections of which city many of the original specimens from 

 Gottorp may still be identified. 



