Spear Head - 2003-32-333 | Collections

Object Number:	2003-32-333
Current Location:	Collections Storage
Provenience:	Easter Island
Section:	Oceanian
Materials:	Obsidian
Length:	9.2 cm
Width:	7.4 cm
Credit Line:	Gift of the Philadelphia Commercial Museum (also known as the Philadelphia Civic Center Museum), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2003
Other Number:	1993.X.244 - Other Number CIVIC1993.X.244 - Other Number

Description

Flaked obsidian spear point with tang and crescentic cutting edge. "Used by warriors (matatoa) in warfare." Exhibited at l'Exposition universelle de Paris 1900. 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).

Bibliography:

	[Book] Phelps, Steven. 1976. Art and Artefacts of the Pacific, Africa and the Americas.. Hutchinson & Co. Type Citation : Page/Fig./Plate: p. 90 Pl. 46; p. 419 #384-389; p. 86	View Objects related to this Type Citation
	[Book] Jennings, Jesse D. 1979. The Prehistory of Polynesia.. Harvard University Press. Type Citation : Page/Fig./Plate: pp. 49-50	View Objects related to this Type Citation