dagger;
dagger-sheath
- Museum number
- Af1878,1101.519.a-b
- Description
-
Dagger (a) made of iron, wood, bone, white metal, leaf-shaped blade, ornamental plates of brass; together with sheath (b) of leather bound with brass strips, decorated with punch marks, brass knob and crosspiece.
- Production date
- 1848 (before)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 32.50 centimetres (dagger)
-
Height: 24 centimetres (sheath)
-
Width: 6 centimetres (dagger)
-
Width: 3.50 centimetres (sheath)
-
Depth: 1 centimetres (dagger)
-
Depth: 1.80 centimetres (sheath)
- Curator's comments
- British and Medieval Extracts Register "West Africa". Ethnography Department registration slip annotated "Mandingo - Bissagos area".
Skelton p.148, no.15
C.J. Spring, African arms and armour (London, The British Museum Press, 1993): 'The dagger shows the influence of the Hispano-Moorish civilisation which flourished in the Iberian peninsula and North Africa at the beginning of the second millennium AD. This influence is also reflected in local textile traditions.'
- Location
- On display (G25/dc15)
- Acquisition date
- 1878
- Acquisition notes
- The series 1878,1101.1 to 629 is the Meyrick collection, formed by Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick (1783-1848), parts of which were given to the BM in 1878 by his cousin and heir Augustus William Henry Meyrick. Most of the objects were European.
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Af1878,1101.519.a-b