Hey,
I don't have any experience at all and am almost always way off when stuff ends up being nautical but here are some leads from google.
On the nautical side, I found:
1) Some hooks described by Chizzy and Terry that were vaguely similar. Note that some other terms other than "hook" were "grapple" and "gaff".
2) Some old anchors that had tines shaped sort of like this, with the loop for a rope/chain.
3) A number of things related to the whaling industry that were similar, under things like "whaling gaff" and "whaling/blubber hook".
On the non-nautical side, some things I saw/know of that are similar:
4) Oil lamp hooks, which seem to have the loop facing the same direction yours does -- that has important implications when you think about the purpose of the piece, see -->
5) Handheld hay hooks for moving small hay bales but there's nowhere to hold that hook and either way the loop is facing the wrong direction.
6) Old time ice hooks, but same problem as above.
7) Finally, the tines off something called a "hay grapple", which is a hay hook but not handheld and on a greater scale (I think)
One last thing to think about:
8) The loop might have been the functional part of this piece, rather than the hook. Imagine it as a bunch of stakes/pegs, where the loops could act as either guides for a rope/line, or as a place to pull them out of the ground (probably not on the latter, but hey, just a thought)
