Contextualising Maritime Collections - Buckles Recording Catalogue

This dataset documents an archaeological assemblage of buckle accessories held by the Western Australian Museum (WAM) from the shipwrecks of Batavia, Vergulde Draeck (Gilt Dragon), Zuytdorp (Zuiddorp), and Zeewijk and associated sites. The documentation of the artefacts was a result of a comparative study of archaeological and visual source material to provide crucial contextual information to the study of clothing accessories retrieved through maritime excavation. The resulting thesis, The Art of Contextualising Maritime Archaeological Collections: Using 17th and 18th Century Paintings to Inform Dutch East India Company (VOC) Clothing Accessories (University of Western Australia, 2024; WA Museum Department of Maritime Heritage Reports No. 354, 2025), should be consulted alongside this dataset.

The dataset comprises three related data tables in comma separated values format: the catalogue of artefacts (buckles), legend for catalogue data fields, and summary table of artefact type totals by shipwreck.