- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Snuff bottle with globular body and short neck of animal skin with rows of raised nodules. [ZM 3/8/2005]
- Long description
- Snuff bottle with globular body and short neck of animal skin picked all over to create decorated rows of raised nodules. [ZM 3/8/2005]
- Cultural groups
- Nguni
- Date / Period
- Date made: Before 1900
- Date collected
- By 1900
- Acquisition information
- Purchased: 25/07/1900
- Dimensions
- Height: max 80 mm, Diameter: max 64 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1900.77.23
- Associated publications
- Illustrated in black and white photograph as figure 41 on plate III of ''The Tandu Industry in Northern Nigeria and its Affinities Elsewhere', by H. Balfour, in Essays Presented to C.G. Seligman, (1934), pp. 5-18. Caption (page 18) reads: 'Plate III. 31 = Clay core for moulding a small tandu box, sub-rectangular shape; 32 = ditto, circular shape; 33 = circular core for moulding a box, with the base covered with membrane, the lid not yet formed; 34 = subrectangular core with base and top coated with membrane in two pieces, to form the box and its close-fitting cover. The above were collected in Katsina, 1930. 35 to 39 = boxes for kola-nuts, etc., of membrane moulded over clay cores. The close-fitting lids are decorated with engraved lines and by staining. Nigeria. 40 = a snuff-flask made by layering hide-scrapings, blood, and powered earth over a clay core; a bone snuff-spoon is attached to it by a thong, Kaffir, South Africa, collected by Captain H. F. de Lisle in 1827; 41 = another similar, Kaffirs of the Transkei, collected by Dr. Kingston; 42 = another similar, obtained by Dr. F. Corner [sic] from the Amampondomisi, Tsolo district, Kaffaria; 43 = snuff-flask moulded in similar manner in the form of an ox, S. Africa, from Miss Acland’s collection; 44 = another, slightly difference, collected by Archdeacon Woodroofe in South Africa.' [MJD 01/11/2011] Referred to on page 24 of 'Stone Age Sub-Saharan Africa', by Peter Mitchell, in World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum: A Characterization, edited by Dan Hicks and Alice Stevenson (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2013), pp. 16-34. Mitchell writes: ‘A little later in date than the objects discussed thus far, but worth noting because they derive from some of the earliest explorations of the very rich archaeological record of the southern Cape coast, are the 85 objects acquired from Henry D.R. Kingston (1900.77.1-83) ... None of these collections is unique in the wider British context (Mitchell 2002a; Roberts 2002 [Catalogue of the southern African Stone Age collections of the British Museum. London: British Museum (British Museum Occasional Papers 108, with contributions from A. Roberts, A. Cohen and K. Perkins)]’. [MJD 14/11/2014]
Search terms: Vessel, Narcotic, Bottle, Snuff Accessory