Carnegie Museum of Natural History

One of the Four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh

anthropology

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Costa Rican Pottery Bird Adorno

bird made of clay from Costa Rica

by Deb Harding

The people of ancient Costa Rica put a lot of bird and animal imagery in their pottery, both painted and in the form of three-dimensional figures. This little bird dates from about 300-800 AD and sat on the shoulder of a large jar from the Guanacaste Peninsula in northwestern Costa Rica.

Deb Harding is a collection manager in Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Section of Anthropology. She frequently blogs and shares pieces of the museum’s hidden anthropology collection, which is home to over 100,000 ethnological and historical specimens and 1.5 million archaeological artifacts.

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Costa Rican Archaeological Bowl

decorative clay bowl from Costa Rica

by Deb Harding

In the process of photographing all the archaeological pottery in Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s collection, this bowl caught my eye. It was purchased as part of a huge collection from an estate owner in the Central Valley of Costa Rica around 1903 while Carnegie Museum curator Carl V. Hartman was doing the first scientific archaeological excavations in Costa Rica. Unfortunately, we do not have any information about the particular site or time period. This is the best example from a whole series of bowls that look like the pigs from Angry Birds™.

Deb Harding is a collection manager in Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Section of Anthropology. She frequently blogs and shares pieces of the museum’s hidden anthropology collection, which is home to over 100,000 ethnological and historical specimens and 1.5 million archaeological artifacts.

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Carved Wooden Gope Board

Carved wooden board from Morigio Island depicting a human-like figure

Gope boards are carved wooden tablets made by groups in the Gulf of Papua. They represent ancestral spirits who protect members of the clan from bad luck, sickness, and death. This particular board from the museum’s hidden collection is from Morigio Island. The photographic scale in the image is about 8 inches long. It was photographed in the diagonal in order to best show the board’s details.

Deb Harding is a collection manager in Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Section of Anthropology. She frequently blogs and shares pieces of the museum’s hidden anthropology collection, which is home to over 100,000 ethnological and historical specimens and 1.5 million archaeological artifacts.

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Wooden Sokar Falcon

carved and painted wooden falcon

This carved falcon from ancient Egypt is associated with two gods, Ptah (the creator god) and Osiris (the god of the dead), and is often written as Ptah-Sokar or Ptah-Sokar-Osiris.

This particular carving is from the Late Period (664-332 BCE), right before the Greeks’ conquest of Egypt. The museum also has falcon mummies, which were given at temples as votive offerings by pilgrims.

Deb Harding is a collection manager in Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Section of Anthropology. She frequently blogs and shares pieces of the museum’s hidden anthropology collection, which is home to over 100,000 ethnological and historical specimens and 1.5 million archaeological artifacts.

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Tunic Decoration from Egypt

woven decoration in dark brown and light brown threadby Deb Harding 

This woven decoration depicting a picture of a leopard is from an Egyptian tunic, possibly from 3–4th
century C.E.

It is part of the museum’s “Coptic textile” collection. “Coptic” is the Greek word for Egyptian, and “Coptic textiles” are not only associated with Coptic Christians, they were made and worn by Egyptians of all faiths in the post-pharaonic period.

Basic tunic-style shirts were decorated with geometric and figurative patches woven into the otherwise plain linen cloth. There might be a border around the neck with a medallion at the end or bands over the shoulders. Medallions might also appear on the shoulders and near the hems of the shirt. Placement and decoration type changed with fashion, as did the length of hem and sleeves, just like today’s fashions.

The museum purchased this collection in 1934 from the Goebelen-Munchener Manufaktur company. The company said they purchased it in 1929 from the impoverished widow of a Swedish archaeologist.

The illustration of tunic styles below is from Textiles from Medieval Egypt, A.D. 300-1300 by Thelma K. Thomas, published by Carnegie Museum of Natural History in 1990. The leopard medallion is used as
the cover art for the booklet.

Deb Harding is a collection manager in Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Section of Anthropology. She frequently blogs and shares pieces of the museum’s hidden anthropology collection, which is home
to over 100,000 ethnological and historical specimens and 1.5 million archaeological artifacts.

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The Unseen Museum

Clay human-like face mask with black and red striped accents. Feathers and course fibers make up the hair, beard, and headdress.

The Unseen Museum: “Magician’s Mask”

This mask is part of a collection purchased in 1902 from Walther Karl, who lived in Matadi, Congo. There is very little information with the Karl collection, usually nothing more than the tribal name. There is no data about why he called this a “magician’s mask.” Dealers in that period often “enhanced” the name of an object to increase its salability. Much of the museum’s African collection came from retired missionaries and from artifact dealers.

Deb Harding is a collection manager in Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Section of Anthropology. She frequently blogs and shares pieces of the museum’s hidden anthropology collection, which is home to over 100,000 ethnological and historical specimens and 1.5 million archaeological artifacts.