Skip to content
Pitt Rivers Museum
AboutHire the MuseumNewsletterUniversity of Oxford

1931.86.182

Specimen of gold-lipped oyster. [El.B 15/09/2011]

1931.86.182

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
Specimen of gold-lipped oyster. [El.B 15/09/2011]
Geographical reference
Papua New Guinea
Oceania > Melanesia > Papua New Guinea
New Britain Bismarck Archipelago
Person
Field collector Beatrice Mary Blackwood
PRM source Beatrice Mary Blackwood
Date / Period
Date made: Before 1930
Date collected
29 September 1929 - 8 October 1930
Acquisition information
Donated: 1931
Materials and processes
Material Shell
Dimensions
Length: max 224 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1931.86.182 Other numbers: Blackwood number 181
Research and responses

This object originated from South New Britain. Miss Blackwood was in Buka Passage on fieldwork from September 1929 - October 1930 and it was probably while travelling to or from this region that she collected this item. For further information about this period of fieldwork see the RDF in Documentation and Blackwood's publication from this work: 'Both Sides of Buka Passage: an ethnographic study of social, sexual, and economic questions in the north-western Solomon Islands.' 1935. Oxford, Clarendon Press. [CK 05 05 1998]

Meleagrina is part of a genus name for pearl oysters which is no longer valid. The current name for the gold-lipped oyster is Pinctada maxima. See here for information: http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/pearls/marine/silver.html [El.B 15/09/2011]

Related Documents File - i) List of 'Contents of Cases sent from Soraken in April 1930.' ii) Notes on: 'Mourning Belt'; 'Map of Buka and Bouganville, areas from which most of the specimens were collected are marked in ink'; 'String Making'; 'Fire'; 'Buka Pottery'; 'Photograph illustrating the use of the implement for scraping coconut'; 'Rite for a new fishing kite, Petats'; 'Fans'; 'Woman's Hoods'; iii) Correspondence: Letter from A. D. Cotton of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew to Beatrice Blackwood, dated 4 November, 1931, thanking her for her map, list of specimens and 'plants used for food magic' which she had sent to be identified; Letter from Arthur Hill, director of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, to Beatrice Blackwood, dated 23 December, 1931, stating that he is enclosing the identification of the plants she had sent to Kew [this list does not appear to be with this RDF file]; iv) Duplicate photographs of Beatrice Blackwood's Buka material. [GI 29/11/2001]

Search terms: Specimen, Currency, Ornament, Animalia, Shell

Further items to explore