Hartog Plate

Before departing, Hartog left behind a pewter dinner plate, nailed to a post and placed upright in a fissure on the cliff top.

DE 27 DITO TE SEIL GEGHM (sic) NA BANTAM DEN ONDERCOOPMAN JAN STINS OPPERSTVIERMAN PIETER DOEKES VAN BIL Ao 1616.

[1] Eighty-one years later, in 1697, the Dutch sea captain Willem de Vlamingh also reached the island and discovered Hartog's pewter dish with the post almost rotted away.

[3] In 1801, the French captain of the Naturaliste, Jacques Félix Emmanuel Hamelin, second-in-command of an expedition led by Nicolas Baudin in the Geographe entered Shark Bay and sent a party ashore.

He also had a plate, or similar, of his own prepared and inscribed with details of his voyage (dating to 16 July 1801) and he had both erected at the Vlamingh site, even adding a small Dutch flag to the plaque.

Just short of 60 years later, on 12 February 1997, the then-premier of Western Australia Richard Court unveiled a bronze plaque to mark the tricentennial of Vlamingh's visit.