Catalogue card notes: "Sword, with very broad (impractical) blade with shoulder and waist, decorated with extensive perforations. Repaired with riveted strips. Handle is also iron, and comprises a grip of twisted wire inside a broad loop."
Eben. Ceremonial sword owned by a person of high rank. Very broad leaf-shaped blade with shoulder and waist, decorated with extensive perforations. Repaired with riveted strips. Handle is also iron, and comprises a grip of twisted wire inside a broad loop.
Eben. Ceremonial sword owned by a person of high rank. Very broad leaf-shaped blade with shoulder and waist, decorated with extensive perforations. Repaired with riveted strips. Handle is also iron, and comprises a grip of twisted wire inside a broad loop.
Catalogue card reads, in black ink: "Z 20437 | W. AFRICA | Nigeria / Benin / Sword, with very broad (impractical) blade with shoulder and waist, decorated with extensive perforations. Repaired with riveted strips. Handle is also iron, and comprises a grip of twisted wire inside a broad loop. / Labelled 'Benin City, Feb'y 18th 1897.' / PTO [arrow]"
Red circular sticker in bottom right corner of card.
On rear of card: ink drawing of sword.
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.