Labels - Markings/1inscriptions Thomas Collection label accompanies object.
A second old brown luggage type label adds ".....then worked with an iron file, [?] the latter four [word illegible] of iron, made by blacksmiths and roughened with knife cuts."
Related Documents/0bibliography Between 1909 and 1915, Northcote Thomas led four extensive anthropological surveys in Southern Nigeria and Sierra Leone, West Africa viz :Tour 1, Edo-speaking peoples, 1909-10; Tour 2, Igbo-speaking peoples, 1910-11; Tour 3, Igbo-speaking peoples, 1912-13; Tour 4, Sierra Leone, 1914-15
The Thomas Collection was originally registered under two numbers: E 1910.118 , 'a comprehensive collection numbering over 2000 objects including a large number of duplicates, illustrative of the ethnology of the Yoruba, Kukuruku and Esa peoples collected in Southern Nigeria 1909-1910 by N.W. Thomas Nigerian Government Anthropologist', and
E 1913.3 'A large series, of Ibo and Ijo manufacture, collected for the Museum by N.W. Thomas M. A. Government Anthropologist of Southern Nigeria'.
The material was not fully catalogued on arrival but Thomas spent a week 'superintending the work of roughly classifying ad labelling his collections [Ibo and Ijo] and the much of the Assistant's time has been devoted to cleaning, mending and restoring the many specimens which were damaged in transit from Nigeria' (Annual Report 1914:3)
The collections were moved to the newly completed Babington gallery by 1916 (Annual Report 1916:2) and 'a typed lists, giving nativenames and provenance has been drawn up from the collector's rough registers and labels'. (Annual Report 1917.3)
The material was finally registered in 1947 'the large N.W. Thomas series from West African, which is being catalogued. as part of the assembling of African collections in the Babington Hall thanks to cases acquired from the Anatomy School's relocation. (Annual Report 1947.2)
In January 2017, Prof. Marcos Martinon-Torres and Agnese Benzonelli, UCL Institute of Archaeology, tested this idno using a portable XRF as part of a programme of base metal analysis of Benin material. This object was tested twice and the results are as follows: 1) Cu: 72.69%; Zn: 25.64%; Sn: 0.13%; Pb: 1.15%. 2) Cu: 72.67%; Zn: 25.61%; Sn: 0.15%; Pb: 1.15%. It was noted that a Zn reading of >25 with Cd suggests a date of 1800+.