Banaba at Pitt Rivers Museum

My wife Barbara spotted two of these ornaments ornaments when we visited the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK, in December 2005. We visited again in August 2009 and I took some bettter photographs than were displayed here before. I also photographed two more objects we did not spot before.The Museum’s online catalogue shows six items collected by C F Wood in 1873, presumably during the trip he wrote about in “Yachting Cruise in the South Seas”, published in 1875. His collection was donated to the Museum by his widow Mrs Edith Wood in 1921.

Accession no. 1921.93.372 Necklet, 3 pendants of turtleshell
Accession no. 1921.93.372 Necklet, 3 pendants of turtleshell
Necklet of Shell disc beads with turtle shell pendante
PANAPA
(OCEAN ID)
GILBERT IDS
C.F. Wood coll. 1873
dd. Mrs Wood 1921
Accession no. 1921.93.373  	String necklet with disc-beads of red shell and four pendants of red shell
Accession no. 1921.93.373 String necklet with disc-beads of red shell and four pendants of red shell
Shell necklet
PANAPA
(OCEAN ID)
GILBERT IDS
C F Wood coll. 1873
dd. Mrs Wood 1921
Accession no. 1921.93.375 String of disc-beads of red shell, some circular, others shaped like 4-pointed stars
Accession no. 1921.93.375 String of disc-beads of red shell, some circular, others shaped like 4-pointed stars
Shell plate bracelet
PANAPA
(OCEAN ID)
GILBERT IDS
C. F.Wood coll. 1873
dd. Mrs Wood 1921
Accession no. 1921.93.374. Neck ornament of shell.
Accession no. 1921.93.374. Neck ornament of shell.
Neck ornament of shell.
OCEANIA
MICRONESIA
KIRIBATI
BANABA ISLAND
Colected by Charles F. Wood 1870-73
and donated by his widow Edith in 1921.

For full information on each item:

  • go to the Pitt Rivers on-line database at http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/databases.html
  • click on the in-text link “OBJECT & PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTIONS CATALOGUES,
  • select “Search the Objects Database”
  • enter the accession number and click on “Perform Search”.

When the next page appears, click on it to get a lot more information.


Coming Home to Banaba – Images and quotes – Transcript – The Making of …