BM_Oc1967_05_10

Title: A message stick from Western Australia held in the British Museum

Description: Wooden ritual artefact, (or message stick?) circular in section and decorated with an irregular pattern of incised grooves. Light brown.

Date Created: 1967

Notes on date created: terminus ante quem

Item type: message stick in a collection

Notes on linguistic areas: The origin of the message stick is given simply as “Western Australia”. It therefore cannot be a associated with a linguistic area.

Dimension 1: 455mm Dimension 2: 44mm Dimension 3: 42mm

Materials: wood

Techniques: incised

Source types: museum collection

Date collected: Acquisition date: 1967

Institution/Holder file: The British Museum object identifier: Oc1967,05.10

Collector: Field Collection by: Alpin Fowler-Thomson Donated by: Mrs V Lewin Curator's comments: "Register 1967: Wood ritual object; circular in section; decorated with irregular pattern of incised grooves; light brown." Acquisition notes: "Register 1967: All collected between the late 1870s and 1901 by donor's father, Alpin Fowler-Thomson; he was Resident Magistrate at York, and possibly in the gold fields, and later Under-Secretary for Railways."

Media copyright: The British Museum British Museum Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

URL institution: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Oc1967-05-10

Notes: 5.12.23 NR: checked against BM online catalogue.

Media Files:

Data Entry: Nitzan Rotman