1969.29.106.2

Collection type

Object

Description

Wooden spear shaft with socketed iron spear-butt. [AFS [OPS move] 5/7/2018]

Long description

Spear consisting of an iron spear-head with a leaf-shaped blade, ogee or s-shaped section, and gently rounded shoulders that curve in to a rectangular sectioned shank. A series of long barbs have been chiselled away from opposite edges and faces of this, pushed down and in towards the body. Two of these barbs are truncated, and may have broken off at their tips. This opens up at the base into an expanding socket with an open seam up the front. It fits onto the top of a wooden shaft, the end of which has been shaved to a point. This has a straight, narrow body, with a series of flat surfaces shaved down the sides to give it a faceted appearance. It has been stained a dark reddish brown and then highly polished (Pantone 4625C). The end of the shaft has been forced into the socket of an iron spear-butt; this also has an open seam down the front, becoming solid below and tapering to a pointed end. The sides of the butt are also faceted with similar 'shaving' marks. There are signs of repair, in the form of a square hole punched through the socketed base of the spear-head, and into the wood of the upper shaft below, and a similar hole punched through the top of the butt, with a nail hammered through it into the wood below. These may well be repairs carried out by the collector, rather than indigenous. The spear is complete; the tip of the blade has been bent, probably through use, there is some surface rust on the iron elements, now a dull grayish brown colour (Pantone 440C), and traces of white paint on the butt end and lower shaft. The object has a weight of 439.7 grams and a total length of 1540 mm. The spear-head is 311 mm long, while its blade has a length of 130 mm, maximum width of 44.5 mm and thickness of 2.8 mm, measures 11.5 by 5.2 mm across the shank, and 18.2 by 14.8 mm across the base of its socket. The shaft has a diameter of 17.1 mm at the top, while the spear butt is 312 mm long, 17.7 mm wide and 16.4 mm thick across the top, and 12 mm wide and 12 mm thick where the body becomes solid again below the socket [RTS 12/7/2005].

Geographical reference

South Sudan

Africa > Eastern Africa > South Sudan

Person

Field collector Morland family

PRM source Abingdon Museum

Date / Period

Date made: 1800-1900

Date collected

1800 - 1900?

Acquisition information

Transferred: 1969

Materials and processes

Material Iron Metal, Material Wood Plant, Process Forged (Metal), Process Hammered, Process Socketed, Process Carved, Process Stained, Process Polished

Dimensions

Diameter: max 17.7 mm, Length: max 1540 mm, Length 312 mm spear butt, Weight 439.7 g

Object numbers

Accession number: 1969.29.106.2

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.

The faceted shaving down the shaft and spear-butt is very distinctive, and should help identify the cultural group that this object belongs to; it has not yet been matched to anything else catalogued from the southern Sudan [RTS 12/7/2005].

Search terms: Weapon, Spear