Pitt Rivers Museum Anthropology and World Archaology

 

Europe

 

Iron manilla

United Kingdom

 

Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers founding collection

Given to the Museum in 1884

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Iron manilla, United Kingdom/Europe

Objects used as currency were sometimes also in themselves desirable objects, frequently used for body ornamentation. In west Africa from the fourteenth century, copper bracelets were used as currency. After the arrival of Portuguese and other European traders, great numbers of these manillas (the Portuguese word for bracelet) were produced in Europe to trade in west Africa. This iron manilla was made in England, for trade with the Igbo people of Nigeria to obtain palm oil and ivory. The ship carrying this manilla from England to Africa was wrecked off the coast of Ireland in 1836.

View database record 1884.99.42