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Home , 1922 in archaeology, Antiquities, British Museum, Soleb

Large print guide

Collecting and empire and empire

The British was founded in 1753 and its history and collection are intimately linked to that of the . From around 1500 to the mid-, a number of European countries established and maintained overseas empires – Britain’s was the largest. A substantial part of the wealth of the British Empire came from the transatlantic slave trade and the colonial exploitation of people and resources.

This trail highlights objects predominantly acquired during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It shows the different, complex and sometimes controversial journeys of objects to the Museum. Often, objects were collected first by individuals or organisations, sometimes passing through several owners before coming to the Museum.

This trail takes in several galleries, most of which are on the Ground floor. Viewing all the objects, in 2 3 the order listed, will take around 60 – 70 minutes. Room 4: Egyptian When you visit each object you’ll find more information there about how the Museum acquired statues of III it. That information is repeated here in this in large print format. These colossal granite were commissioned by Amenhotep III (about 1390–1352 BC) Please look out for this graphic to help you find for the Temple of in Upper (northern the objects. ), then a colony of pharaonic . Around 1,100 years later, when the powerful and independent ruled the area, Collecting and empire these already ancient were shipped

Follow the trail 420 km south up the to a royal palace at Jebel Barkal.

Further objects will be added to this trail in the Lord Prudhoe, the Duke of Northumberland future as the result of ongoing collaborative work (1792–1865), undertook a series of journeys and . to Egypt and further up the Nile into Sudan. In 1829 he visited Jebel Barkal and while there Please note that the Museum regularly lends he arranged the shipment of the lions back to objects to other institutions around the world. , at a time when increasing numbers of This means that occasionally some of the featured Egyptian were being brought to Europe objects may be temporarily removed from display. by private collectors. The British General 4 5 in helped secure the necessary firmans within the context of long established local (permissions) from the authorities. Lord Prudhoe traditions. donated the lions to the in 1835.

Colonialism: ancient and modern Room 13: 1050 – 520 BC

Egyptian rulers tended to conceive of Northern The Amphora, about 530 BC Sudan as an extension of their territory, both in ancient times and during the . Lord This amphora by the potter and painter Exekias Prudhoe’s party was travelling into a Sudan came to the British Museum in 1836. It was recently conquered by Muhammad Ali, the purchased in at the posthumous sale of ruler of Egypt. This conquest ushered in over antiquities and belonging to the collector and a century of Egyptian control, and then Anglo- diplomat Edmé-Antoine Durand (1768–1835). Egyptian rule, interrupted by a period of Sudanese The vessel was discovered in an Etruscan tomb independence under the Mahdist (1881–98). at in Central , on land belonging to Lord Prudhoe described Kushite as Lucien Bonaparte, the brother of . ‘a very bad copy of Egyptian, bad in design and Durand built up a large at his worse in execution’. For him, the presence of these own expense. He described it as the result of ‘30 Egyptian lions at Jebel Barkal reflected a Kushite years of perseverance’ and ‘thousands of financial desire to emulate Egypt. However, the lions are sacrifices.’ He sold the majority of his collection to now understood as examples of Kushite creativity the Museum in 1821. in incorporating aspects of Egyptian pharaonic

6 7 Collecting Greek painted Room 17:

Up until the 1830s, the majority of the British The Nereid Monument, about 380 BC, Museum’s collection of ancient Greek vases comprised items made in Southern Italy rather In the early , , a traveler than the Greek mainland. Most of these were and antiquary, led two expeditions to acquired by the Museum in 1772 from the (southwestern Turkey). He obtained the permission collection of Sir William Hamilton who, as British of the Ottoman Sultanate in Constantinople ambassador to the Kingdom of , had (Istanbul), to excavate at . The Nereid acquired a large collection of Greek vases and Monument lay in ruins when Fellows discovered other antiquities. The Exekias amphora was one it. Once a firman (permit) had been secured, of the first Athenian-made painted pots to arrive in Fellows began to excavate and remove the the British Museum. It set a new standard in the ruined monuments, with funding from the British understanding and appreciation of Greek painted Museum. pottery. Fellows had the expert assistance of sailors from the Royal Navy to move and transport the heavy stone sculptures and architectural pieces, which were floated on rafts down the river Xanthos to the ship HMS Beacon. This transported the finds to Malta, before they were shipped onwards to Britain. 8 9 Antiquities and the Room 4: Egyptian sculpture

Within the Turkish Ottoman Empire lay many of Ankhrenepnefer, sites of Egyptian, Assyrian and ancient Greek about 860 BC, Egypt monuments. Permissions (firmans) were granted to a number of British, French and German In 1882, the British navy bombarded archaeological expeditions during the 19th to quell a nationalist rebellion, instigating 70 years century, to excavate these sites and remove of control over Egypt. That same year in , objects and architecture. The first decree the novelist (1831–1892) founded legislating against the export of antiquities the Egypt Exploration Society ‘for the purpose from Ottoman territories was issued in 1869. of excavating the ancient sites of the Nile Delta’. In the same year, the Sultan Abdulaziz ordered The Swiss Egyptologist Édouard Naville (1844– the creation of an archaeological museum in 1926) was employed to direct excavations, using Constantinople. Now the Istanbul Archaeological local workmen. He started at Tell el-Maskhuta, Museum, it opened in 1891. east of the Nile Delta, a site he interpreted as the ‘storehouses of Pithom’ built by the exiled Ongoing excavations led by Turkish archaeologists Hebrews, as recorded in the Bible in the Book are now providing new information on the ancient of Exodus. Subsequent work revealed it to be site of Xanthos, but the exact design of the Nereid the remains of a pharaonic town. This statue was Monument, and the positioning of its sculptures, is found in that first excavation season during 1883. still debated.

10 11 Diplomacy and scattered finds Room 25: Africa

The export of Egyptian antiquities was generally Ancestral screen from , 19th century not permitted at this time. However, ruler, Khedive Mohamed Tawfiq Pasha (1852–92), At the request of Kalabari chiefs in 1916 a number and the French-run Antiquities Service, made an of ancestral screens were placed under the exception for this statue to come to the British protection of P. Amaury Talbot, a British district Museum. It was effectively a diplomatic gift, officer in southern Nigeria. This apparently as Tawfiq relied heavily on British support and unusual appeal came in response to a period of financing. religious persecution that swept the New Calabar towns of Bakana and Abonema in 1915 and 1916. The formal partage (division) of objects This movement, initiated by the fundamentalist discovered by foreign expeditions soon became Christian leader and self-styled ‘prophet’ Garrick commonplace. A share of any discoveries could Braide, threatened the widespread destruction be exported, though significant pieces were of Kalabari ancestral . Talbot presented to remain in Egypt. Over 16,000 objects in the nine of these screens to the British Museum and British Museum collection come from Egypt a further two to the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford. Exploration Society excavations, including Today, ancestral shrines are still commissioned excavations after Egyptian independence in 1952. and honoured by Kalabari people. The revised Egyptian Antiquities of 1983 banned the export of all antiquities. Caption: Ancestral of Amachree I, Buguma, Nigeria, late . Photographed by British 12 13 administrative officer Edward Chadwick. presented by the British Museum. It remains in use in the palace at Ikere. Palace and lintel from Nigeria, Caption: Onijagbo Obasoro Alowolodu, Ogoga about 1910–14 of Ikere (1890–1928) seen here (veiled) with his son outside the palace at Ikere. Photo © The In 1924 this door was displayed within the Trustees of the British Museum, Charles Partridge Nigerian Pavilion at the British Empire collection, 1909. at Wembley, London. It was selected for inclusion by the exhibition’s commissioner, Major C.T. British-Yoruba relations Lawrence, who described it as ‘the finest piece of West African carving that has ever reached By the early 19th century Lagos island had England’. Lawrence borrowed it for the exhibition become a major slave trading centre. Following from the Yoruba ruler, the Ogoga of Ikere, Nigeria, the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 1807, who had commissioned it for his palace around Britain was active in suppressing the importation 1910. It was carved by Olowe of Ise (1878–1938). of enslaved people to its colonial territories. In The Museum eagerly petitioned to purchase the 1852 the British-installed Oba (king) of Lagos door and lintel following the Wembley exhibition. signed an anti-slavery treaty with Britain. Lagos The Ogoga refused to sell the carvings, instead was subsequently annexed by Britain and offering them as a gift ‘free and absolute’. The established as Lagos Colony in 1862, providing Museum was advised to offer something in return a base for the expansion of colonial jurisdiction for this magnificent donation. In 1925 a European- across Yorubaland. style throne was delivered to the Ogoga,

14 15 Images of Europeans were gradually incorporated His widow, Lady Beatrix Gatacre, presented it to into the works of Yoruba sculptors, reflecting the the Museum in 1909. increasing influence of Britain in the region. This door records a historic meeting in 1901 between Caption: The Mahdist leader Emir Mahmoud the Ogoga of Ikere and the British travelling following defeat at the battle of Atbara by Anglo- commissioner for Ondo province, Captain William Egyptian forces, 1898. Ambrose. Anglo-Egyptian involvement in Sudan Military tunic from Sudan, late 19th century In 1819 to 20 Muhammad Ali, the Ottoman ruler This appliquéd tunic (jibba), worn by a Sudanese of Egypt, dispatched his army up the Nile to soldier, formed part of the spoils of war taken by occupy northern and central Sudan. This period of Anglo-Egyptian forces at the battle of Atbara, occupation was brought to an end by a Sudanese Sudan in 1898. The pocket decoration indicates nationalist movement led by Muhammed Ahmad that it probably belonged to a senior army officer. (1844–1885), an Islamic religious leader and After their victory at Atbara, Anglo-Egyptian troops self-proclaimed Mahdi (‘rightly guided one’). raided the Sudanese enclosure and, following The movement’s capture of Khartoum in January established practice for both sides of the conflict 1885 and the creation of the Mahdist state at this period, took clothing and personal items. (1881–1898) led to Anglo-Egyptian involvement Major General Sir William Forbes Gatacre (1843– in Sudan and the birth of the present Republic of 1906), who commanded the British Brigade at Sudan. Many followers of the Mahdi wore tunics Atbara, appears to have taken this jibba to Britain. (jibba), with appliquéd patches of coloured cloth,

16 17 as a uniform. This form of tunic was probably Participating in potlatches was banned by the inspired by the everyday garments worn earlier Canadian government in 1884 as part of wider by religious men in the region that were patched national efforts to assimilate people. as they became ragged. After discovering this potlatch, the Canadian authorities charged and sentenced 26 people to prison. They were offered lighter sentences Room 26: on condition that they surrender their masks and regalia and never potlatch again. Those charged Potlatch Kwakwaka’wakw mask from Canada, surrendered around 400 items which were sold to about 1910 North American . In 1938 one of these museums sold the present mask to an English Since 2005 this mask (pictured above) has collector named Harry Beasley. His wife donated been on loan to the Kwakwaka’wakw run U’mista the mask to the British Museum in 1944. Cultural Centre on Alert Bay, British Columbia. The mask would have been worn and danced Caption: The mask as it is displayed today in the as part of a ceremonial celebration called a U’mista Cultural Centre. Photo © Trustees of the potlatch, in which rights and titles are publicly U’mista Cultural Centre. acknowledged. As a result of a potlatch hosted by Chief Dan Cranmer in 1921 this mask and many others were confiscated by the Canadian authorities.

18 19 The ‘Namgis (Kwakwaka’wakw) First Nation West African drum, collected in Virginia, and the British Museum 1700-1750

Daughter of Chief Dan Cranmer and This wooden drum is the earliest African- Kwakwaka’wakw anthropologist, Gloria Cranmer American object in the British Museum. It was Webster, identified this mask in a photograph made by Akan people in West Africa over 300 of the surrendered regalia taken in 1922. This years ago. The first enslaved Africans arrived in led to years of careful discussions between the North America in 1619 and we assume the drum U’mista Cultural Centre and the British Museum. crossed the Atlantic aboard a slave ship, but Eventually the two institutions agreed a long- this is not known for certain. Drums were played term loan of the mask to Alert Bay. It is displayed during these journeys and captives were forced to with the other potlatch regalia surrendered at the dance for exercise in order to keep them healthier time. This loan has strengthened the relationship amid the horrendous conditions. Around 1730, a between the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nation and Reverend Clerk acquired the drum in Virginia, then the British Museum and has led to productive a British colony and now a state within the USA. collaborations. The drum passed from him to Sir in England where it became part of his collection, This text was written in consultation with U’mista incorrectly recorded as a Native American drum. Cultural Centre, Canada. Recent scientific examination revealed that the main body of the drum is made from a variety of wood found in West Africa.

20 21 Sir Hans Sloane and the British Museum Room 1: Enlightenment

In his will, Sloane, a wealthy , offered Puppets and masks from Java, 1700–1816 his entire collection to the public in return for a payment of £20,000 to his heirs. Sloane’s These objects were collected by Sir Stamford collection, with several additional and Raffles (1781–1826), a British colonial official. collections, became the foundation of the British Between 1811 and 1816 Raffles was Lieutenant- Museum, which was established on 7 June 1753 Governor of Java, infamously known for authorising by an Act of Parliament. an attack on the most powerful Javanese court. Sloane’s career as a collector began in 1687 During his time there, he amassed collections and when he became physician to the Governor of reports on aspects of the island that appealed Jamaica, then a British colony. Sloane worked to early 19th-century European ideas about as a doctor on plantations worked by enslaved civilisation, particularly national history and people. With assistance from English planters and antiquities. All of Raffles’ papers were lost when enslaved West Africans he assembled a collection the ship returning him to Britain in 1824 sank, so of 800 plant specimens, animals and local we will never know for certain how his objects tools and personal items. On returning from the were obtained. Stylistic features and the unused Caribbean Sloane married an heiress to Jamaican condition of the puppets and masks displayed sugar plantations worked by enslaved people, here indicate that they were probably gifts or profits from which allowed him to greatly expand were purchased by Raffles, rather than being his collections. acquired through looting. Raffles’ collection was donated to the British Museum in 1859 upon the 22 23 death of his widow. Soup plate from , 1740s This soup plate was part of a uniquely painted The British in Java porcelain dinner service commissioned by Commodore Lord George Anson of the British The French seized the island of Java from the East Company. The plate was bequeathed Dutch in 1807 during the Napoleonic wars to in 1892 to the Museum by Anson’s relative, the gain access to local resources. After a successful politician Thomas George Anson, 2nd Earl of military expedition by British East India Company (1825-92). troops in 1811, Raffles was appointed Lieutenant- Chinese porcelains made at for Governor of Java. He held the position until the the British market were sent to the port city of island was returned to the Dutch in 1816. Raffles Guangzhou to be shipped to Britain, via India, on wanted Britain to keep Java as a colony because East Indiamen ships. he felt Southeast Asia was of particular strategic importance since it connected British colonies in The British East India Company and China India with trade interests in China. He wished to establish a centre through which goods, such as European and American direct trade with China ceramics, textiles, tea, coffee, spices and opium, was dominated by the Honourable East India could be freely traded to benefit the British. Company, which held a monopoly from 1672 Unable to develop Java, Raffles established until 1833. The East India Company traded many Singapore as a British port in 1819. commodities including, in the early 19th century, opium grown in India and bought for recreational and medicinal use. The refusal of the Company

24 25 to reduce this trade when challenged by Qing It is the earliest known Aboriginal shield from government officials led to the First Opium War and has come to symbolise the first (1839–42). The Treaty of Nanjing, which ended British colonization of Australia and its ongoing the war, forced the Qing emperors to open further legacy, which still affects Aboriginal and Torres ‘Treaty Ports’ for international trade. Strait Islander people in Australia today.

Shield from New South Wales, Australia The colonisation of Australia

This shield, of bark and wood (red mangrove), Australia has been inhabited for at least 60,000 dates to the late 1700s or early 1800s. Broad years. Although William Dampier visited the shields such as this were used as defensive northwest coast of Australia in the late 1600s and weapons against spears. The size and shape of sailed up the east coast in 1770, the hole in this shield suggest it was pierced by permanent British occupation began in 1788 a spear. with a ‘First Fleet’ of ships carrying convicts to establish a penal colony at present day Sydney. Although once thought to have been collected in In 1901, Australia became a country independent 1770 by James Cook or at Kamay from the United Kingdom. Some Aboriginal people (Botany Bay, near Sydney), it may have been in central Australia remained out of contact with obtained from its owner between about 1790 and Europeans until the early 1980s. 1815 and sent to London by a colonial governor or other collector. The Eora people of the Sydney region suffered the first brunt of British colonisation from 1788.

26 27 Despite loss of population due to disease Caption: The totem pole in front of a timber house and frontier violence as well as displacement, frame, Kayang, Canada. Frederick Dally, 1884. Aboriginal people continue to live in the Sydney region maintaining strong bonds with their First Nations of British Columbia and traditional lands and culture. introduced diseases

By the 1780s European explorers and settlers Great Court had introduced diseases such as smallpox and influenza to Pacific Northwest Coast peoples, Totem pole from British Columbia, Canada, who had little immunity to them. Many of these about 1850 illnesses attacked older people who were knowledgeable leaders. Their loss threatened This pole was originally at the front of a clan the political stability of communities and the house in the village of Kayang. It features crests transmission of knowledge and languages. – ancestral beings that mark identity and assign When Wiah sold the totem pole, the village of families with rights to stories and property. Kayang had been abandoned for nearly 15 years. Around 1900, Haida Chief Wiah sold the pole Kayang had once been a productive community to medical doctor and naturalist C.F. Newcombe but was devastated by epidemics in the late and recounted the stories associated with the 1800s. Survivors relocated to the nearby village depicted crests for him. Newcombe sold the pole of Masset. By the time British Columbia became to the British Museum in 1903. Canada’s sixth province in 1871, sickness, armed hostilities and starvation had reduced indigenous

28 29 population numbers in British Columbia by more at art galleries in Australia and around the world. than half. This was created under the aegis of the community-based Spinifex Project, and purchased in 2013 by the British Museum from Room 24: Living and Dying the Outstation Gallery in Darwin, Australia.

Pukara, a painting from Western Australia, The colonisation of Australia 2013 Australia has been inhabited for at least 60,000 This painting by senior men of the Spinifex people years. Although William Dampier visited the depicts important Ancestral Beings who created northwest coast of Australia in the late 1600s and the landscape, people and the law which they James Cook sailed up the east coast in 1770, abide by. Before beginning to paint on canvas, permanent British occupation began in 1788 Spinifex people made ephemeral on with a ‘First Fleet’ of ships carrying convicts to the body and on the ground. A series of major establish a penal colony at present day Sydney. paintings created in the late 1990s demonstrated their customary law and helped to achieve Some Aboriginal people in central Australia recognition of native title. remained out of contact with Europeans until the early 1980s. The Spinifex people were moved Men and women of the Spinifex people also paint off their ancestral lands when Britain used it for their stories and country in a form suitable for the testing of atomic weapons in the and sale to outsiders. Their art can now be bought 1960s. After a long struggle, their claim for native

30 31 title was recognized by the Australian courts in Kiribati 2000. Kiribati (pronounced Kiribas) is a group of islands Dance costume from Kiribati, 1987-2017 that straddle the equator in the central Pacific Ocean. Spread over a vast area spanning almost This display was co-curated with members of the 3,000 miles, they lie approximately halfway Kiribati community in the UK. In the Kiribati islands between Australia and the Hawaiian islands. dance is a way of storytelling, remembering and Formerly known as the Gilbert Islands, they were passing on cultural knowledge. The community part of a British colony, the Gilbert and Ellice members were keen that dance should be a Islands, until independence in 1979. The name prominent element of this display. One of the Kiribati, the local pronunciation of Gilberts, was participants, Victoria Burn, created the film nearby adopted at independence. The Republic of Kiribati which shows a dance performance. When work is a member of the Commonwealth, a political began on this project during 2016 the Museum’s association of 53 states, most of them former collection did not include a complete dance territories of the British Empire. costume, but only some of the elements that you can see here. The rest of the costume was Milk vessel from Somalia, early 20th century acquired in 2017 through the contacts of the Kiribati community. Some of the additional items This vessel was purchased by Powell- were donated, others were newly commissioned Cotton during a visit to Italian Somaliland (modern and made in Kiribati especially for this display. Somalia) between 1934 and 1935. She travelled with her father, Major Percy Powell-Cotton,

32 33 but stayed on after he returned to the UK. Her background, social class and gender helped her gain a level of access to spaces and people that was unusual for the time. She formed close local relationships that helped her to collect everyday objects and to take photographs. The Powell- Cottons donated around 300 objects from Somalia to the British Museum in 1935.

From colonial Somaliland to independence

European colonial powers were interested in Somalia because its coast was strategically important in controlling commercial sea routes around the Indian Ocean. In the late 19th century, Britain and Italy colonised parts of Somalia, establishing British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland respectively. In 1960 Somalia gained independence as the United Republic of Somalia, incorporating the former territories of the Italian colony and the British protectorate.

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