1932.65.203

Collection type

Object

Description

Perforated pear-shaped bone pendant.

Geographical reference

Israel

Asia > Western Asia > Israel

Cultural groups

Natufian

Person

Field collector Francis Turville-Petre

PRM source British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem

Date / Period

Date made: 13000-10000 BC

Date collected

1931

Acquisition information

Donated: 1932

Materials and processes

Material Bone, Process Perforated, Process Ground

Dimensions

Length: max 21 mm, Depth: max 3 mm, Width: max 9 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1932.65.203

Research and responses

This pendant was studied by zooarchaeologist Dr Valasia Isaakidou and student Anna Neiblum in May 2025. They suggested that it could be made of shell rather than bone.

Associated publications

Featured in Out in Oxford: An LGBTQ+ Trail of the University of Oxford's Collections. Part of 'Celebrating Diversity' a project funded by Arts Council England via the Oxford University Museums Partnership and created with the LGBTQ+ community. [NC 16/02/2017] See booklet Out in Oxford: An : An LGBTQ+ Trail of the University of Oxford's Collections (published by University of Oxford) [in RDF with printout of webpage http://www.glam.ox.ac.uk/outinoxford-prm]: These pendants were excavated by Francis Turville-Petre in 1931. Turville-Petre (1901-1941) was an openly gay archaeologist who campaigned for more tolerant attitudes towards homosexuality and reform of the laws banning sex between men. He attended the 1928 Congress of the World League for Sexual Reform in Copenhagen, and between 1928 and 1931 stayed at the renowned Institute of Sexual Research in Berlin, run by the doctor and sexologist Magnus Hirschfield. Turville-Petre was also an active member of Hirschfield’s Scientific Humanitarian Committee, whose motto (Per Scientiam ad Justitiam or ‘Justice Through Science’) expressed its desire to use research and science to end discrimination against LGBTQ+ people. While in Berlin, Turville-Petre socialised with other gay intellectuals, including Christopher Isherwood and WH Auden. One of Auden’s lost plays, The Fronny (1930), was inspired by Turville-Petre, who was known as ‘Fronny’ because his German lovers were unable to pronounce the name ‘Francis’ (by Martha Robinson Rhodes).[NC 16/02/2017] Turville-Petre, F. 1932. Excavations in the Mugharet El-Kebarah The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 62, 271-76. [AS 04/01/2010]

Search terms: Ornament, Pendant