Their eyes are almond-shaped, blank, and bulging their noses are triangular and their mouths are formed as parallel bars. They have similarly shaped oval faces, centrally parted caplike hair, and cursorily modeled features. The six outward-facing figures are nearly identical. This figure sits in front of the stern castle and looks forward. On each side is carved the profile of a long-haired, bearded man (head, neck, and a small section of the torso are represented) in front of him is a tied sack or other cargo. On each side are three figures, represented by their frontal heads and necks. This forward structure, a bow screen, or possibly a flexible upper deck, is described by two narrow horizontal fillets within which are short vertical incisions on its top, it is marked off with transverse parallel lines.
At the bow, in front of the figures, is an undifferentiated section of amber and, above it, a rectangular form that protrudes over the bow. In front of the aphlaston is a raised structure, probably the stern castle, articulated on its sides by five parallel vertical indentations, with a division down the center on the top, and uneven protrusions (the sheet and cordage?). At one end, identified here as the stern, is a curved, knoblike protrusion that must be the aphlaston, or sternpost, which is shaped like a schematic bird-head device. The ship has a deeply rounded hull and a heavy keel. The pendant is worked fully in the round. While in the donor’s collection, the piece was lightly cleaned and the two broken sections of the bow reattached. There are a number of inclusions (or, possibly, deterioration pittings) throughout the piece, mostly on the port side. The object is dark reddish brown in ambient light and translucent and dark reddish orange in transmitted light. There are large fissures on the top, port, and starboard sides near the stern.
A section of the keel is broken off, and there is an old fracture loss on the starboard side just above the keel. There is a break at the bow, a large chip in this break, a break at the bow set of suspension holes, and a number of small chips on the top side. –1976, Gordon McLendon (Dallas, TX), donated to the J.
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