Part of a collection made by Hugh N Nevins, District Officer, Benin City, for the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum. Purchased by the WHMM on 15 January 1929 for £3.0.0.
Commemorative head; made of terracotta. Human head depicted wearing high beaded coral collar, beaded necklace and hair plaits at both sides of head. Upper eyelid has short hatched marks, circular hollowed irises. Hole through top of head.
The Wellcome Historical Medical Museum flimsy inventory card records: 'Head. Terra cotta, showing detail of headdress and necklet. 9 1/2" x 7 1/4". Hole running through centre. (Very incomplete). Found on the Benin Ancestral altars. (The making of these heads is now virtually extinct).' See Collection File: Af1954,23.265-281. ~Register 1954 Clay human head wearing a high beaded collar, the top of the head has been broken. A narrow cylindrical aperture runs up the middle of the head. Benin.