#if i write like a 13yo doing a history project it's because thats essentially when my formal education ended lol

[birdthatisbored]

Hi bird!

I’m glad to see you join the round icon gang 🖤 Can you please tell us about that coin? Thank youuuu!

Hiiiii thank you I do enjoy a good circle :)

It's the 2nd place mathematics medal that John Irving won in school in 1830 when he was fifteen! It was found on King William Island in 1879 by Frederick Schwatka and his men near the grave of who we assume to be Irving based on the medal and other artifacts found there. They brought the skeleton back to Scotland and buried him in Dean cemetery in Edinburgh in 1881 under a gravestone that includes a carving of the medal.

I don't know where the medal went after that, whether it was reburied with him or given to the family or kept by someone else, or where it is now but it haunts me day and night. I hate the idea that something that was so important to him that he carried it to his grave was taken from him after death but I recognise that's just me being abnormal about him lol. On the other hand I do think it's funny that he seemingly carried around a memento of That Time He Won Something for 18+ years but also. Relatable as fuck. I love you John.

(the full picture showing both sides of the medal and a picture of the carving of it on his grave)