Asset number
917025001
Description
Ladle, ceremonial, of the horn of the big horn sheep, of slender tapering form, the handle surmounted with a 3-dimensional figure in the form of a squat seated mammal, wearing a twined hat with three potlatch rings. Inserted in the hat is a copper-shaped piece of haliotis shell; this is pierced at the apex, suggested either that it is reutilised, or that it once was decorated with an attachment. The figure is further holding a piece of approximately rectangular haliotis shell, perhaps also originally intended to represent a copper. The inside of the handle is decorated with four large pieces of trapezoidal haliotis shell inlay. The haliotis copper is attached to the hat with 2 pegs, of uncertain material. // The backside of the ladle is decorated with incised and low-relief formline design. Identity of the crest is unclear, but it seems to include a large face or head on the underside of the bowl; this is unfinished towards the tip of the ladle. The decoration of the backside of the handle seems to include a line of segmented units along the axis, which may represent the body of an insect, such as a dragonfly. Interestingly the formline designs includes 'u' forms decorated with incised cross hatching.
© The Trustees of the British Museum
Using this image
Commercial use
To license images for charged-for journals and publications, and other commercial uses, please contact British Museum Images.
Contact BM images
Non-commercial use
You are permitted to use images from the British Museum website subject to our terms of use.
The image will be released to you under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license. You can read more about the British Museum and Creative Commons here.
Download this image
New photography
If you cannot see an image that you want on the British Museum website, you can order new photography from us.
Order new image