Linden-Museum Stuttgart: 097399

Linden-Museum-Stuttgart
Linden-Museum Stuttgart: 097399
License: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Linden-Museum-Stuttgart
Linden-Museum Stuttgart: 097399
License: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

 

Object description
This information was provided by the German museum where the object is currently located or where it was located prior to restitution.

Object Name Carved elephant tusk
Description The ivory carvers were organized in guilds in the kingdom like the metal casters and wood carvers. They worked almost exclusively for the royal court, because ivory was considered royal material. It stood for the court of Oba, but also for the court of Olokun in the otherworld. Moreover, its white color symbolized lime, the sign of peace, wealth and purity. Lime was therefore regularly rubbed on the altars of the god Olokun and also on some of these tusks. In 1897, they stood vertically on the 130 ancestral altars in the courtyards of the royal residence, on mounts or memorial heads. They were covered with the remains of the bloody sacrifices that were regularly offered here. Today, however, the tusk shows the burn marks from the conquest. The carvings represent: King Ohen (with fish tail, snake belt and ceremonial sword), a warrior (with bell); King Ewuare (supported by two men), King Ohen (dragged by two crocodiles to the realm of the water god Olokun), a messenger from the Kingdom of Ife with two Portuguese. Text: Dietmar Neitzke.The ivory carvers were organized in guilds in the kingdom like the metal casters and wood carvers. They worked almost exclusively for the royal court, because ivory was considered royal material. It stood for the court of Oba, but also for the court of Olokun in the otherworld. Moreover, its white color symbolized lime, the sign of peace, wealth and purity. Lime was therefore regularly rubbed on the altars of the god Olokun and also on some of these tusks. In 1897, they stood vertically on the 130 ancestral altars in the courtyards of the royal residence, on mounts or memorial heads. They were covered with the remains of the bloody sacrifices that were regularly offered here. Today, however, the tusk shows the burn marks from the conquest. The carvings represent: King Ohen (with fish tail, snake belt and ceremonial sword), a warrior (with bell); King Ewuare (supported by two men), King Ohen (dragged by two crocodiles to the realm of the water god Olokun), a messenger from the Kingdom of Ife with two Portuguese. Text: Dietmar Neitzke.
Type Elefantenzahn
Materials Ivory
Size, Dimensions Length: 160 cm. Diameter: 11 cm.
Dating of Object

Museum / Collection / Acquisition
This information was provided by the German museum where the object is currently located or where it was located prior to restitution.

Museum Linden-Museum Stuttgart
Museum Inv.-No 097399
Collector Gustav Umlauff (Hamburg, Germany)
Acquisition date 1922
Circumstances of acquisition The carved elephant tusk was bought from the ethnographic dealer Gustav Umlauff (Hamburg, Germany). Text: Markus Himmelsbach.
   
Notes

Current ownership status and location

Status restituted
Date of last status change 14 December 2022
Current ownership Federal Republic of Nigeria
Holding institution National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM, Nigeria)
Current location Temporarily at the Linden-Museum Stuttgart

Categorization for the search functions
This information was included by the German Contact Point for Collections from Colonial Contexts and is intended to make the object easier to find in the database.

Object Type tusk
Materials ivory
Tags

Dataset

ID 157
last Change 2023-01-26 12:15:00
License Linden-Museum Stuttgart