blade
- Museum number
- Am1997,Q.1577
- Description
-
Obsidian blade
- Dimensions
-
Length: 5.50 centimetres
-
Width: 1.50 centimetres
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1825
- Acquisition notes
- Found apparently unregistered in South American collections in 1997. Formally registered in June 2013.
Object was found in a small box with three arrow-heads, a pottery ball and four additional obsidian blades. All were ostensibly unregistered, but also in box was a paper label which read "Obsidian - Mexico from which chips have been knocked off - from the small pyramid Chollula and on the great pyramid of the sun [Teotihuacan] mixed with fragments of red earthenware and human bones - Presented to Dr. Buckland by Mr. Bullock." Three large obsidian cores (Am1997,Q.1581-1583) are also possibly associated with this body of material.
This is clearly a reference to the Bullock/Buckland Mexican collection acquired in 1825, which according to the records included 16 obsidian blades (Am1825,1210.26-41, all missing) and a mixed collection from Cholula or Teotihuacan containing "terracotta, stone, volcanic matter [and] bone" (Am1825,1210.52, missing) which probably correlates with the card. No arrow-heads are recorded in the Bullock/Buckland collections. Further research is needed to match these objects with their original numbers, and temporary numbers have been assigned in the meantime.
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Am1997,Q.1577
