Loan to the exhibition ‘The Global City: Lisbon in the Renaissance’ Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

Facade of the Museum Nacional de Arte Antiga © Pitt Rivers Museum

On the 15^th of February I travelled to Lisbon with two objects, a Congo cushion cover and an Aztec pendant. Both objects travelled in a crate in the cargo hold of a Tap Portugal plane. Myself and the PRM crate arrived in sunny Lisbon later that day. We were driven to the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Portugal’s national art gallery where the crate was stored overnight for the objects to be unpacked and installed in the exhibition ‘The Global City, Lisbon in the Renaissance’ the following day.

Cushion cover 1886.1.254 .1 © Pitt Rivers Museum

Pendant 1905.56.1 © Pitt Rivers Museum

The exhibition recreates the mercantile heart of Renaissance Europe’s foremost global city, Lisbon. A time when luxury and exotic goods, spices and commodities were imported from Africa, Brazil, Asia and elsewhere and sold on the streets of Lisbon. The cushion cover loaned to the exhibition is an important part of the PRM’s collections. The cushion cover is from the Museum’s earliest collections, that of the Tradescants from the 1600’s. The cushion cover has been radio carbon dated AD 1360-1436. The cushion cover is made from raffia fibre, admired for their beauty by European explorers, they were soon prized as bedcovers and floor coverings and taken back to Europe as luxury items. The PRM cushion cover is displayed alongside two other raffia textiles from Kongo from the Museum of Roman Civilisation, Rome, Italy. The pendant is made from jade and is from Mexico and was donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1905.

PRM crate being prepared for cargo at Heathrow © Pitt Rivers Museum

The crate arriving in Lisbon © Pitt Rivers Museum

Installation in the exhibition gallery © Pitt Rivers Museum

Due to the age and fragility of the cushion cover it was packed by our conservation department for a safe journey to Lisbon. For the duration of the exhibition it is very important that the environmental conditions of the display case are kept stable and the textile is not exposed to too much light, humidity or fluctuations in temperature. Before installing the display in Lisbon I checked the condition of the two objects and monitored the environmental conditions of the showcase. I then ensured that the cushion and pendant were secure before leaving for Oxford. The exhibition closes on the 9^th of April when I will return to Lisbon de-install the loan and collect the cushion cover and pendant.

Faye Belsey

Assistant Curator

Loan to the exhibition ‘Making Monuments on Rapa Nui’ at Manchester Museum

PRM objects being unpacked for condition reporting  © Pitt Rivers Museum. 

On 26th March I travelled to Manchester to meet a small case of stone tools from the PRM collections, which had travelled by truck for installation in the temporary exhibition ‘Making Monuments on Rapa Nui’. The exhibition, curated by Professor Colin Richards, an archaeologist at Manchester Museum who has completed extensive fieldwork on Rapa Nui (more commonly known as Easter Island), takes a fresh look at the iconic statues, or moai, the island is most famous for.

PRM objects after having been condition reported and PRM stone tools (1916.36.167,
1916.36.175, 1916.36.191 and 1916.36.249) arranged for display  © Pitt Rivers Museum.

carved stone head 1916.36.319
 © Pitt Rivers Museum

The objects loaned from the PRM include a number of stone tools, a number of mata'a flakes and hammer stones, from a mata'a factory. Mata'a are stone tools, often tanged spearheads, made from obsidian, a natural glass quarried on the island. Rapa Nui, being a volcanic island has an interesting geological make up, rich in volcanic lava stone from which the monumental heads were made and obsidian. Mata'a appear much more frequently and in larger numbers in later archaeological contexts on Rapa Nui. This has been interpreted as evidence that the islanders' traditional way of life descended into civil strife and open warfare. However, warfare was a part of life on many Polynesian islands, including the Marquesas and it is quite likely to have occurred on Rapa Nui from when the island was first settled. The stone tools were donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1916 by William Scoresby Routledge and his wife Katherine Routledge, both British born and Oxford educated archaeologists, anthropologist and adventurers, who collected the specimens during the voyage of their schooner yacht “Mana” to Rapa Nui and Pitcairn Island between 1913 and 1915. Amongst the stone tools loaned to the exhibition are displayed stone tools belonging to Manchester Museum, the British Museum and World Museum Liverpool. The Routledge’s assembled important collections from Rapa Nui. The PRM has 270 objects from their time spent excavating the island including the more ubiquitous carved stone heads such as this one (1916.36.319, above) which did not go on loan.

PRM stone tools (1916.36.118 - .135) on display  © Pitt Rivers Museum.

Carved lava head, 1970.40.3  © Pitt Rivers Museum

As well as stone tools Manchester also borrowed a small carved human head. Carved of light porous volcanic stone the head has a heavy brow beneath five parallel lines across the forehead. Round protruding eyes, prominent nose, wide mouth and very thin lips. Six parallel vertical lines from the lower lip to the chin indicate a beard. The head was purchased from Staff Sgt. Joseph N. Pansing in 1970 and was obtained by him during his time spent on the island between August 1966 and March 1967. The slightly comical features of the head and in particular the detail of the beard led Museum colleagues at Manchester Museum to speculate as to whether the head is a ‘fake’ and was made to sale to tourists. Researchers during the 19th century saw small stone figures outside the entrances to Rapanui houses.

The exhibition includes some excellent images of Rapa Nui, two large polystyrene reproductions of moai (statues) and a reconstructed quarry as well as current research and thinking from ongoing research by Professor Colin Richards, The University of Manchester’s Professor of World Prehistory and Archaeology, who is currently investigating monumentality, as part of the AHRC-funded Rapa Nui: Landscapes of Construction project involving UCL, Bournemouth University and University of Highlands andIslands. The exhibition is runs until the 6^th September, I recommend a visit to Manchester to see it and the newly refurbished Whitworth Art Gallery which I was able to fit a visit to whilst I was in Manchester.

Replica moai in the exhibition at Manchester.

Faye Belsey 

Assistant Curator  

Reading List:

Obsidian Procurement and Consumption on EasterIsland, Christopher M. Stevenson, Leslie C. Shaw and Claudio Cristino Archaeology in Oceania Vol. 19, No. 3 (Oct., 1984), pp. 120-124.

Routledge, Mrs. [Katherine] Scoresby Routledge (1919) TheMystery of Easter Island: The Story of an Expedition. London: Sifton, Praed & Co. Ltd.

Katherine Routledge (Pease): van Tilburg, Jo Anne (2003) Among Stone Giants: The Life of Katherine Routledge and herRemarkable Expedition to Easter Island. London: Scribner.

Blog: Making Monuments at Manchester Museum, Bryan Stitch.