Native Name | Mata'a |
Object Number | 98-11-3 |
Current Location | Collections Storage |
Provenience | Easter Island |
Date Made | After 1600 |
Section | Oceanian |
Materials | Obsidian |
Description | Flaked obsidian spear point with tang and crescentic cutting edge. One of two such points picked up by Alton A. Lindsey, a member of Admiral Byrd's expedition to the Antarctic in 1933-35, "on the lava flow enroute from Hanga Roa village to [Rano Raraku]." Such points seem to have appeared on Easter Island after A.D. 1600 during a period of prolonged internal strife. Based on native testimony and ethnographic specimens, they functioned as spear points hafted to wooden shafts of variable length (Jesse D. Jennings, The Prehistory of Polynesia, pp. 149-150). |
Height | 10 cm |
Width | 9 cm |
Credit Line | Purchased from Alton A. Lindsey, 1998 |
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