Pair of short gloves

Pair of short gloves, time and origin unknown. D-Berlin, Museum of Natural History, Humboldt University, Malacozoological Collection, ZMB/Minor. 103,239 a/left, b/right glove (MS Inventory 2)

Both gloves, but the label belongs to the gloves from the same collection (MS inventory 2)

Pair of short gloves, time and origin unknown. D-Berlin, Museum of Natural History, Humboldt University, Malacozoological Collection, ZMB/Minor. 103,239 a/left, b/right glove (MS Inventory 2).

Sea silk, plain right knit, 4 rows left, 9 stitches/cm, l 24.9 cm, width 10.3 cm; right glove slit to thumb at the outer edge.

Presumably these gloves also come from Taranto and date from the 19th century. But nothing is known about their history.

In the museum catalogue we find with the number 103.238 a byssus of Pinna nobilis, Ionian Sea, bosom of Taranto. The tuft of fibres consists of several fibre beards glued together.

Label: “Byssus ist das fadenförmig ausgezogene, im Wasser erstarrende Erzeugnis einer Drüse an der Unterseite des Fusses, mittel dessen die Muschel an fremde Gegenstände sich anheftet” (in English: Byssus is the filiform product of a gland on the underside of the foot, which solidifies in water by means of which the shell attaches itself to foreign objects).

In the main catalogue of 1877, a Pinna attenuata Rv – Massana, Zickeli is listed under the inventory number 27278. This refers probably to Carl Friedrich Jickeli, malacologist (1850-1925); the shell was found in Massawa, Eritrea.