recordNumber
1321120
Institution
Field Museum
Edo designations
English designations
Altar Tusk
Categories
Altar & Shrine Objects
Location
1400 S Lake Shore Dr, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
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Altar Tusk
Altar Tusk
Altar Tusk

Iconographies

1 annotations
TBC King's Mark
King's Mark

The King’s Mark primarily refers to a marking carved on elephant tusks in the form of two serif ‘I’ letters placed side by side. The marks served as a clear declaration of the royal court’s ownership of these tusks and underscored the Ọba’s key role in controlling trade relations, especially concerning ivory (Eisenhofer in Plankensteiner 2007, cat. no. 37, p. 297). Historically, the Ọba held a near monopoly on ivory, being entitled to one tusk from every elephant slain within the kingdom (Plankensteiner 2007, p. 293). This established ivory as a direct symbol of the Ọba’s power and wealth.

1 annotation
TBC King's Mark

Provenance

3 events
Looted
February 22, 1897 (day approximate) to June 1899 (year approximate)
The object was looted by Unknown member of the British colonial military campaign on Benin - February 1897 from Benin Kingdom.
Unknown
February 22, 1897 (day approximate) to 1905
The object is known to have come into contact with William Downing Webster, later in London.
Purchase
1905
The object was purchased by the Field Museum from William Downing Webster from London to Chicago.

Related archival documents

2 documents
See all
An archival document representing a Inventories of 18 page(s)
Inventory
Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Die Erwerbung ethnologischer Gegenstände aus der Benin-Expedition. Vol. 5
Date
sometime in 1903 to sometime in 1906
An archival document representing a Inventories of 257 page(s)
Inventory
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
Stock books
Date
March 24, 1900 to December 31, 1903

Institution data

Field Museum
The data was transferred directly by the institution.
Last updated: 2022-01-21
Language: english
Institution fieldValue
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object id
89717
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object id
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1321120
culturalArtefactDescription/1/Full_Description
description
carved elephant tusk; narrow oblong carving midway on one side; king's mark; Dimensions: L = 53.0 cm; 20 5/8"
culturalArtefactDescription/1/null
description
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material
animal tooth; elephant tusk - ivory
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tusk
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production place
Benin City
Accession info
prior source
[976] W. D. Webster (Purchase)
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Edo
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Courtesy of: C. J. Philipp. (c) Field Museum of Natural History. CC BY-NC 4.0. https://mm.fieldmuseum.org/fc8918b9-21a4-4d81-b903-fd4ee6b0a363 (accessed on 11 Oct 2021)
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(c) Field Museum of Natural History. CC BY-NC 4.0. https://mm.fieldmuseum.org/d5d51fad-ad84-4b37-ba1d-bb85a22ffe0d (accessed on 11 Oct 2021)
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Courtesy of: C. J. Philipp, J. W. Kennedy. (c) Field Museum of Natural History. CC BY-NC 4.0. https://mm.fieldmuseum.org/955ca5e1-c204-4923-9798-479a61b89c42 (accessed on 13 Jan 2022)
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Sensitive Content

Digital Benin collates digital material from institutions, and some of this material is inherently colonial and contains words, terms and phrases that are inaccurate, derogatory and harmful towards African and African diasporic communities. Catalogue transcriptions, book titles, exhibition titles and museum titles may contain harmful terms. We recognise the potential for the material to cause physical and mental distress as well as evoke strong emotions. Owing to the scale of the collection’s data, a process to implement sensitive-content warnings in the displayed data is still incomplete. The material within the catalogue does not represent Digital Benin’s views. Digital Benin maintains a strong anti-colonial, anti-racist position and affirms its support for centring the humanity of historically marginalised and disenfranchised communities. Read more about the background of this statement here