Eigil Knuth
Encyclopedia
Count Eigil Knuth was a Danish explorer, archaeologist, sculptor and writer. He is referred to as the Nestor ("elder statesman") of Danish polar explorers. His archaeological investigations were made in Peary Land
and adjacent areas of High Arctic
Greenland
. Knuth was made a Knight of the Dannebrog
.
(near Copenhagen
). His parents were count Eigil Knuth sr, a captain, and Djimphna (née Gamel).
His hero was the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen
who, in 1888, was the first to cross the Greenland
icecap
; the trip was financed by State Councillor Augustinus Gamel, a Danish businessman, and Knuth's maternal grandfather. Gamel's birth gift to his grandson was a present Gamel had received from Nansen: the compass Nansen carried on his Greenland icecap expedition.
Knuth studied building technology at Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, and then woodcarving at Val Gardena in Italy between 1926 and 1928. He published his first book, on the subject of philosophy, in 1927, revealing an affinity with the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard
. In 1932, Knuth graduated as a gymnastics teacher from Ollerup Physical Training College in Denmark.
on an archaeological dig to excavate old Norse
sites on West Greenland's coast. Knuth spent the next two years as an art critic
for the Copenhagen newspaper Dagens Nyheder.
Assisting Dr. Roussell and Dr. Poul Nørlund during the summer of 1934, Knuth excavated old Norse ruins at Igaliko. In 1935, Dr. Helge Larsen, Ebbe Munck, and Knuth, as archaeologist, assisted on the Augustine Courtauld
Expedition to East Greenland, during which Gunbjrns Fjeld, Greenland's highest mountain, was climbed. The following summer, in 1936, Knuth, Robert Gessain, and Michel Perez participated in the French Trans-Greenland Expedition under Paul-Emile Victor
, crossing the Greenland inlandsis (ice cap), starting at Christianshåb
in the west, and ending at Tasiilaq
/Angmagsalik, an Inuit settlement in the east. It was here that Knuth worked as a sculptor, producing a notable series of busts of the local Inuit.
Knuth financed the bulk of his next expedition, known as Dansk Nordgrønlandsekspedition 1938—39, udsendt af Alf Trolle, Ebbe Munck og Eigil Knuth til Minde on Danmark-Ekspeditionen ("Danish Northeast Greenland Expedition 1938—39, sent out by Alf Trolle, Ebbe Munck, and Eigil Knuth in memory of the Denmark Expedition"), arriving in Greenland with his co-leader and friend, Ebbe Munck, on 19 June 1938. The crew consisietd of six more men, a. o. the botanist Paul Gelting
. It was the first Danish Greenland expedition to make use of an airplane, a de Havilland Tiger Moth
. With the start of war, Knuth could not return to Greenland as planned, instead, becoming an announcer for Denmark Radio in the Danish resistance movement.
During the period of 1948—50, Knuth was back in Greenland and made several discoveries, including a large tool collection of the Thule culture and tool fragments of the Dorset culture
. His most important contribution, however, was the first identification and demonstration of Independence I culture
and Independence II culture
, immigration waves of Paleo-Eskimo
, spread apart by almost 3000 years. He named the cultures "Independence" after the Independence Fjord
located in Peary Land.
Artist
In addition to sculpting, he produced paintings and watercolours. Some of his works were on display at the 1939 New York World's Fair
.
His portrait busts are in Nuuk
.
Peary Land
Peary Land is a peninsula in northern Greenland, extending into the Arctic Ocean. It reaches from Victoria Fjord in the west to Independence Fjord in the south and southeast, and to the Arctic Ocean in the north, with Cape Morris Jesup, the northernmost point of Greenland's mainland, and Cape...
and adjacent areas of High Arctic
Arctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
. Knuth was made a Knight of the Dannebrog
Order of the Dannebrog
The Order of the Dannebrog is an Order of Denmark, instituted in 1671 by Christian V. It resulted from a move in 1660 to break the absolutism of the nobility. The Order was only to comprise 50 noble Knights in one class plus the Master of the Order, i.e. the Danish monarch, and his sons...
.
Early years
Knuth was born in Klampenborg, DenmarkDenmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
(near Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
). His parents were count Eigil Knuth sr, a captain, and Djimphna (née Gamel).
His hero was the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen
Fridtjof Nansen
Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen was a Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In his youth a champion skier and ice skater, he led the team that made the first crossing of the Greenland interior in 1888, and won international fame after reaching a...
who, in 1888, was the first to cross the Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
icecap
Icecap
Icecap my refer to* Ice cap, a geographical feature* Icecap , a blog skeptical of global warming* Raleigh IceCaps, a defunct ECHL Hockey Team...
; the trip was financed by State Councillor Augustinus Gamel, a Danish businessman, and Knuth's maternal grandfather. Gamel's birth gift to his grandson was a present Gamel had received from Nansen: the compass Nansen carried on his Greenland icecap expedition.
Knuth studied building technology at Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, and then woodcarving at Val Gardena in Italy between 1926 and 1928. He published his first book, on the subject of philosophy, in 1927, revealing an affinity with the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel...
. In 1932, Knuth graduated as a gymnastics teacher from Ollerup Physical Training College in Denmark.
Career
Knuth first trip to Greenland occurred in 1932 accompanying Dr. Aage Roussel from the National Museum of DenmarkNational Museum of Denmark
The National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen is Denmark’s largest museum of cultural history, comprising the histories of Danish and foreign cultures, alike. The museum's main domicile is located a short distance from Strøget at the center of Copenhagen. It contains exhibits from around the world,...
on an archaeological dig to excavate old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
sites on West Greenland's coast. Knuth spent the next two years as an art critic
Art critic
An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...
for the Copenhagen newspaper Dagens Nyheder.
Assisting Dr. Roussell and Dr. Poul Nørlund during the summer of 1934, Knuth excavated old Norse ruins at Igaliko. In 1935, Dr. Helge Larsen, Ebbe Munck, and Knuth, as archaeologist, assisted on the Augustine Courtauld
Augustine Courtauld
Augustine Courtauld , often called August Courtauld, was a yachtsman and British Arctic explorer, best known for serving as the solo meteorologist of a winter observation post, Icecap Station, located in the interior of Greenland in 1930-1931...
Expedition to East Greenland, during which Gunbjrns Fjeld, Greenland's highest mountain, was climbed. The following summer, in 1936, Knuth, Robert Gessain, and Michel Perez participated in the French Trans-Greenland Expedition under Paul-Emile Victor
Paul-Émile Victor
Paul-Émile Victor was a French ethnologist and explorer.Victor was born in Geneva, Switzerland. He graduated from École Centrale de Lyon in 1928. In 1934, he participated in an expedition traversing Greenland...
, crossing the Greenland inlandsis (ice cap), starting at Christianshåb
Qasigiannguit
Qasigiannguit is a town located on the southeastern shore of Disko Bay, in the Qaasuitsup municipality in western Greenland. With 1,253 inhabitants as of 2010, it is the twelfth-largest town in Greenland. The main industry is shrimp and halibut fishing....
in the west, and ending at Tasiilaq
Tasiilaq
Tasiilaq is a town in the Sermersooq municipality in southeastern Greenland. With 1,930 inhabitants as of 2010, it is the most populous community on the eastern coast, and the seventh-largest town in Greenland...
/Angmagsalik, an Inuit settlement in the east. It was here that Knuth worked as a sculptor, producing a notable series of busts of the local Inuit.
Knuth financed the bulk of his next expedition, known as Dansk Nordgrønlandsekspedition 1938—39, udsendt af Alf Trolle, Ebbe Munck og Eigil Knuth til Minde on Danmark-Ekspeditionen ("Danish Northeast Greenland Expedition 1938—39, sent out by Alf Trolle, Ebbe Munck, and Eigil Knuth in memory of the Denmark Expedition"), arriving in Greenland with his co-leader and friend, Ebbe Munck, on 19 June 1938. The crew consisietd of six more men, a. o. the botanist Paul Gelting
Paul Gelting
Paul Emil Elliot Gelting was a Danish ecologist, botanist and lichenologist. He was associate professor at the University of Copenhagen and particularly active in Greenland....
. It was the first Danish Greenland expedition to make use of an airplane, a de Havilland Tiger Moth
De Havilland Tiger Moth
The de Havilland DH 82 Tiger Moth is a 1930s biplane designed by Geoffrey de Havilland and was operated by the Royal Air Force and others as a primary trainer. The Tiger Moth remained in service with the RAF until replaced by the de Havilland Chipmunk in 1952, when many of the surplus aircraft...
. With the start of war, Knuth could not return to Greenland as planned, instead, becoming an announcer for Denmark Radio in the Danish resistance movement.
During the period of 1948—50, Knuth was back in Greenland and made several discoveries, including a large tool collection of the Thule culture and tool fragments of the Dorset culture
Dorset culture
The Dorset culture was a Paleo-Eskimo culture that preceded the Inuit culture in Arctic North America. It has been defined as having four phases, with distinct technology related to the people's hunting and tool making...
. His most important contribution, however, was the first identification and demonstration of Independence I culture
Independence I culture
The Independence I culture was a Paleo-Eskimo culture of peoples who lived in northern Greenland from 2,400 to 1,000 B.C. It is named after Independence Fjord. During this time they coexisted with the Saqqaq culture of southern Greenland...
and Independence II culture
Independence II culture
The Independence II culture was a Paleo-Eskimo culture that flourished in northern and northeastern Greenland , north and south of the Independence Fjord. The Independence II culture arose in the same region as the Independence I culture, which became extinct six centuries earlier...
, immigration waves of Paleo-Eskimo
Paleo-Eskimo
The Paleo-Eskimo were the peoples who inhabited the Arctic region from Chukotka in present-day Russia across North America to Greenland prior to the rise of the modern Inuit and/or Eskimo and related cultures...
, spread apart by almost 3000 years. He named the cultures "Independence" after the Independence Fjord
Independence Fjord
Independence Fjord is a large fjord in the eastern part of northern Greenland. It is about long and up to wide. Its mouth, opening to Wandel Sea of the Arctic Ocean is located at...
located in Peary Land.
Artist
In addition to sculpting, he produced paintings and watercolours. Some of his works were on display at the 1939 New York World's Fair
1939 New York World's Fair
The 1939–40 New York World's Fair, which covered the of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park , was the second largest American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. Many countries around the world participated in it, and over 44 million people...
.
Later years
Knuth's Danish Peary Land Expeditions ended in 1995 with his last visit to Brønlundhus at Brønlund Fjord which served for almost 50 years as his Peary Land expedition headquarters. He died in Copenhagen the following year and he is buried at Bispebjerg Cemetery.Legacy
Before his death, Knuth was unable to complete a comprehensive book summarizing his Peary Land archaeological findings. That task fell upon Bjarne Grønnow, heir to Knuth's archival information. The Northernmost Ruins of the Globe: Eigil Knuth's archaeological investigations in Peary Land and adjacent areas of High Arctic Greenland (2003) is a compilation of Knuth's findings and observations.His portrait busts are in Nuuk
Nuuk
Nuuk, is the capital of Greenland, the northernmost capital in North America and the largest city in Greenland. Located in the Nuup Kangerlua fjord, the city lies on the eastern shore of the Labrador Sea and on the west coast of Sermersooq. Nuuk is the largest cultural and economic center in...
.
Awards
- 1951, Hans EgedeHans EgedeHans Poulsen Egede was a Norwegian-Danish Lutheran missionary who launched mission efforts to Greenland, which led him to be styled the Apostle of Greenland. He established a successful mission among the Inuit and is credited with revitalizing Dano-Norwegian interest in the island after contact...
Medal, Royal Danish Geographical Society - 1952, Gold Medal: Patron's Medal, Royal Geographical SocietyRoyal Geographical SocietyThe Royal Geographical Society is a British learned society founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences...
- 1953, Mungo Park MedalMungo Park MedalThe Mungo Park Medal is awarded by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in recognition of outstanding contributions to geographical knowledge through exploration and/or research, and/or work of a practical nature of benefit to humanity in potentially hazardous physical and/or social...
, Royal Scottish Geographical SocietyRoyal Scottish Geographical SocietyThe Royal Scottish Geographical Society is a learned society founded in 1884 and based in Perth. The Society has a membership of 2500 and aims to advance the science of geography worldwide by supporting education, research, expeditions, through its journal , its newsletter and other publications... - 1979, honorary Doctor of Science degree, University of CopenhagenUniversity of CopenhagenThe University of Copenhagen is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Denmark. Founded in 1479, it has more than 37,000 students, the majority of whom are female , and more than 7,000 employees. The university has several campuses located in and around Copenhagen, with the...
- 1993, NersornaatNersornaatNersornaat or the Greenland Medal for Meritorious Service , is awarded by the Greenland Home Rule government. It is the highest award based in Greenland. The medal was instituted on 1 May 1989 in connection with the ten year anniversary of the Greenlandic home rule...
Gold Medal, Home Rule of GreenlandParliament of GreenlandThe Parliament of Greenland is the legislature in the government of Greenland, an autonomous province of Denmark. The government of Greenland is also called Home Rule of Greenland. 16 seats are needed for a majority....
Partial works
- (1927). Kunst og Liv, OCLC 38313431
- (1936). Fire Mand og Solen. : En Tur over Grönlands Indlandsis, OCLC 186735073
- (1940). Under det nordligste Dannebrog, beretning om Dansk Nordøstgrønlands ekspedition 1938—39, OCLC 1839380
- (1942). Report on the expedition and on subsequent work at the Mørkefjord Station, OCLC 251025543
- (1943). Ernst Zeuthen: 1880—1938, OCLC 16916718
- (1943). Billedhugger i Angmagssalik, OCLC 31103011
- (1945). Tanker ved tingene, OCLC 11580030
- (1948). Sommerrejsen til Pearyland, OCLC 13624744
- (1958). Det mystiske X i Danmark fjord, OCLC 10856612
- (1960). Aron of Kangeq: 1822—1869 : The seal hunter who became father of Greenland's art of painting, OCLC 61075103
- (1964). Rapport over Den 3die Peary Land Ekspedition: sommeren 1964, OCLC 45432772
- (1967). Archaeology of the Musk-ox way, OCLC 185867987
- (1967). Thai-Danish Prehistoric Expedition 1960-62 : Archaeological excavations in Thailand, OCLC 220587733
- (1973). Kap Harald Moltke (82⁰09'23"N., 29⁰53'00"W.) : Jørgen Brønlund Fjord, Peary Land: [rapport], OCLC 70279288
- (1980). Umiaq'en fra Peary Land, OCLC 7615402
- (1995). Uafhængighed : hundeslæderejsens filosofi = Kiffaanngissuseq: qimussimik angalanerup isumaliutersuutai = Independence: the philosophy of a dog sledge journey, OCLC 1995
- (2003). Billedhugger i Ammassalik, ISBN 8714299135