Skip to content
Pitt Rivers Museum
AboutHire the MuseumNewsletterUniversity of Oxford

1948.2.155

Iron spear head, socketed. [ASh [OPS move] 26/9/2017]

1948.2.155

Digital asset copyright: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

Terms and Conditions

If you wish to order a high-resolution image and/or licence its use for print or web publication, exhibition, film, promotional product or any other use, whether in the academic or commercial sector of any print run, then please visit photographic services.

Collection type
Object
Description
Iron spear head, socketed. [ASh [OPS move] 26/9/2017]
Long description
Iron spear head, with a long tapering blade with a ridge down the centre. The blade is socketed and decorated around the join of the socket with ridges and chevrons. [ASh [OPS move] 26/9/2017]
Geographical reference
South Sudan
Africa > Eastern Africa > South Sudan
Cultural groups
Zande
Date / Period
Date made: Before 1930
Date collected
1927 - 1930
Acquisition information
Found unentered: 1948
Materials and processes
Material Iron Metal, Process Socketed, Process Cast
Dimensions
Depth: max 24 mm, Width: max 61 mm, Length: max 508 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1948.2.155
Research and responses

For an essay on the variety and cultural significance of spears in South Sudan, particularly among the Dinka and Nuer, see ‘“Spears” that are not Spears’, by Jok Madut Jok, in Pieces of a Nation: South Sudanese Heritage and Museum Collections, edited by Zoe Cormack and Cherry Leonardi (Leiden: Sidestone Press, 2021), pp. 110–114.

Larken describes the Zande spear as follows: "A Zande carries a spear (baso) or a club (kere). The former has a blade from fourteen to eighteen inches long, and about three inches broad at its widest point. It has a socket of four or five inches, into which the haft (para) fits. Both edges are kept sharp, as it is often used as a billhook or knife, but the blade is not polished, nor is any covering or sheath used. The haft is about six feet long and an inch or less in thickness. It is made from the heart of a tree called bakiwe, though if a young bamboo is available it will be used. A binding of narrow flat bands of beaten brass, copper, or iron is sometimes applied to one end or the other. One end of the haft is cut to a point and inserted in the socket of the spear, and sometimes fixed there by a nail. On the other is usually a small iron shoe, called suguru, which is used to dig up roots, or to make holes for posts when house building. Smaller spears are made for boys, and heavier ones for hunting elephant or buffalo. Only one spear is usually carried" (P.M. Larken, 1926, "An Account of the Zande", Sudan Notes and Records IX no. 1, p. 39) [RTS 19/8/2005].

Search terms: Weapon, Spear-head, Spear

Further items to explore