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1900.56.53

Fragment of bored (volcanic?) stone. Possibly used as a digging-stick weight. [JC 16/7/2002]

1900.56.53

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Collection type
Object
Description
Fragment of bored (volcanic?) stone. Possibly used as a digging-stick weight. [JC 16/7/2002]
Long description
Fragment of bored (volcanic?) stone. Possibly used as a digging-stick weight. The stone is dark brown in colour with red and pale grey flecks or small pebble fragments within. The stone is half a ring in shape, probably having once been in the shape of a perforated circle. [LKG 12/01/2010]
Date / Period
Date made: Before 1878
Date collected
Between September 1876 and February 1878
Acquisition information
Donated: 1900 Found unentered: 07/2002
Materials and processes
Material Stone
Dimensions
Width: max 50 mm Approx, Length: max 74 mm Approx, Weight 287 g
Object numbers
Accession number: 1900.56.53
Associated publications
As well as exhibiting his collection at the Anthropological Institute on 26 February 1878, Sanderson also gave a paper about the collection; see 'Notes in Connection with Stone Implements rom Natal [a paper read by the author at a Meeting of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland on 26 February 1878]', by John Sanderson, Journal of the Anthropological Institute, Vol. VIII (1879), pp. 15-21. [JC 17 1 2002] 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: ‘Another early collection comprises the 40 stone artefacts (and 2 potsherds) collected or acquired by John Sanderson (principally in KwaZulu-Natal), exhibited by him to the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1878 (Sanderson 1878 [see above reference]) and donated by it in 1900 (1900.56.1-53). This is, in fact, the only 19th-century southern African Stone Age collection in the PRM that appears to have been exhibited to a British learned society, creating a sharp contrast with the origin of much of the British Museum's material of the same kind, much of which was acquired after first being displayed and discussed at meetings of the Royal Anthropological Institute or the Society of Antiquities (Mitchell 2002a [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] 08, with contributions from A. Roberts, A. Cohen and K. Perkins).]’. [MJD 14/11/2014]

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