A group of metal objects lie at the heart of this paper: a trio of medieval jugs made in Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. All three were looted by the British military in the final years of the nineteenth century from Kumasi, in modern-day Ghana, then the capital of the Asante Kingdom. Two of the jugs were acquired by the British Museum, one in 1896 and the other in 1933, while the third was gifted to the Prince of Wales’s Own Yorkshire Regiment in 1896 by the governor of the Gold Coast. The significance of the jugs, and their presence in West Africa, has long been recognised; the anthropologist Jack Goody stated as far back as 1971, that: “If it were known, the story of how these vessels reached the tropical forest of West Africa would encapsulate much of the economic history of trans-Saharan trade.” This paper will explore the medieval and Early Modern history of the jugs but will also consider their shifting status and significance over time, as well as the context for their nineteenth-century removal, transportation and redisplay in England.
Pitt Rivers Museum Research Seminar in Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology, Trinity Term 2024
Fridays, 12pm-1.30pm(Weeks 1-4)
In person at the Pitt Rivers Museum Lecture Theatre.
Convened by Paul Basu and Emily Stevenson
