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1934.8.27

Penannular brass armlet with broad ribbed body. The body has ten lengthways ribs and turned back ends. [RTS 24/3/2004].

On display

1934.8.27

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Collection type
Object
Description
Penannular brass armlet with broad ribbed body. The body has ten lengthways ribs and turned back ends. [RTS 24/3/2004].
Long description
Penannular armlet consisting of a broad rectangular sectioned band bent into an oval loop with open ends, 14 mm apart. These ends have been turned back on themselves to form thicker terminal bars. The inside face is flat, and the outer face has been decorated with nine parallel grooves running around the circumference, creating ten raised ribs. Powell-Cotton suggested that this object had been cast, and although this may be true for the original rectangular piece from which this object has been made, tool marks on the surface suggest that it was subsequently hammered into shape, with the grooves then chiselled into the surface. The object is currently a shiny metallic yellow colour (Pantone 871C), with some green corrosion on the inner surfaces. The armlet is 71.7 mm by 64.8 mm across its outer edges, and has a length of 63.5 mm between its inside edges; the band is 62.8 mm wide and from 4 to 7 mm thick. It weighs 511.7 grams [RTS 24/3/2004].
Geographical reference
South Sudan
Africa > Eastern Africa > South Sudan
Warab Kornuk
Cultural groups
Dinka
Date / Period
Date made: Before 1933
Date collected
25th May 1933
Acquisition information
Donated: 1934
Materials and processes
Material Brass Metal, Process Cast, Process Hammered, Process Incised
Dimensions
Width 64.8 mm, Depth 62.8 mm, Length 71.7 mm, Thick: max 7 mm, Weight 511.7 g
Object numbers
Accession number: 1934.8.27 Other numbers: 2766
Research and responses

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica Online, the White Nile is the section of the Nile between Malakal and Khartoum, Sudan [CW 23/3/2000]. However the way in which this term has been used seems to have changed since this object was collected, and the term is probably used here in a broader sense; Kornuk seems to be located in the administrative district of Warab. Powell-Cotton made ethnographic films during his 1932-3 shooting expedition to southern Sudan; footage included a Dinka hunter setting a trap, a staged fight between a Dinka and Jur and a female Dinka potter at work (see the description in Mrs Powell Cotton, "Village Handicrafts in the Sudan", Man 34 (112), pp 90-91).

A similar armlet was published by Schweinfurth, and attributed to the Jur; this is said to have been cast and then the decoration chiselled in (G. Schweinfurth, Artes Africanae, pl. II fig. 3).

Nebel defines Lung, plural luong as an ‘iron ring; iron bar’ (Nebel 1979, Dinka-English Dictionary, p. 53) [RTS 9/11/2004].

Search terms: Ornament, Arm Ornament