Answers to my question

On Friday I asked you, Whatzit?

Two of you bravely responded: Larissa B. guessed that it might be a fossilized seed pod or some sort of sea shell. Ana guessed that it was a part of a cranium.

Neither of you are exactly right, but Ana's pretty close. The object is question is actually a whale ear bone!

I wish I could tell you more about it than just it's name, but unfortunately, that's about all the information I have. The museum received the whale ear bone as part of it's first accession, which consists of over 600 lots of objects. Some of those lots have a great deal of information about their origins, others do not. The whale ear bone falls in the latter category. If I were to hazard a guess about its origins, I would guess that the donor bought the ear bone from some curiosity shop during his travels in the first half of the twentieth century, but there's really no way to say for certain.

Thanks for playing Whatzit!