The first thing to note about both collections is that the founding collection has a very high number of objects from one country (UK and Ireland, as it was at the time) whilst the second collection has a larger number of large-sized country collections and less of a single peak collection from the UK (although it is still four times the size of the next largest collection).

How many countries are represented in each collection?

140 countries are represented in the founding collection. 129 countries are represented in the second collection. The founding collection has representation from 11 more countries than the second collection.

A. No objects from countries in second collection, but represented in founding collection:

Botswana, Cambodia, Cape Verde, Costa Rica, East Timor, Easter Island Rapa Nui, Equatorial Guinea, Gambier Islands French Polynesia, Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau, Honduras, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Federated States of, Namibia, Nicaragua, Pitcairn Islands, Singapore, Society Islands French Polynesia, Taiwan, Tokelau Islands, Tuamotu Archipelago French Polynesia, Tubuai Islands French Polynesia,  Tunisia, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, Vietnam, Yemen.

B. Objects from countries in second collection, but not represented in founding collection:

Antiqua, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bosnia, Central African Republic,  Dominica,  Grenada,  Haiti,  Kazakhstan, Lebanon,  Luxembourg, Malawi, Maldives, Montserrat, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Slovakia, St Kitts Nevis,  Turkmenistan, Venezuela.

C. No objects from these countries in second or founding collection:

Andorra, Anguilla, Aruba, Bahrain, Belarus, Belize, Bermuda, Brunei, Burkino Faso, Burundi, Cayman Islands, Chad, Chechnya, Comoros, Cuba, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Falkland Islands, French Guiana, Galapagos Islands, Georgia, Gibraltar, Guadeloupe, Guam, Heard & McDonald Islands, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lietchenstein, Lithuania, Martinique, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Melilla, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Nauru, Netherlands Antilles, Northern Mariana Islands, Oman, Puerto Rica, Qatar, Reunion, Ross Dependency, Rwanda, San Marino, Sao Tome & Principe, Seychelles, South Georgia, South Sandwich Islands, St Helena, Sta Pierre & Miquelon, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Togo, Tristan de Cunha, Turks & Caicos Islands, United Arab Emirates, Uruquay, Uzbekistan, Vatican City, Virgin Islands, Wallis & Futuna Islands, Western Sahara, Western Samoa, Windward Islands, Wrangel Island.

Top 10 countries from both collections

The Top 10 rankings for both collections confirm the importance of the UK (and Ireland) collections to Pitt-Rivers being a factor of nearly 6 / 4 times larger than the next biggest collection. However the size of collections from each of the top 10 countries from the two collections is much larger for the second collection. The importance of archaeological collections is also confirmed by the rankings (particularly for the second collection), as the Top 10 countries collections from the two collections -- such as France and Denmark in the founding collection and Egypt, Cyprus, and Switzerland in the second -- are all dominated by archaeological artefacts. In the founding collection some ethnographic collections are very important numerically, for example the North American (USA and Canada), Indian and Andaman Islands collections. In the second collection it is only at No. 5 in the ranking that the first ethnographic collection of any size (apart from that from the UK) appears, from New Guinea.

Top 20 rankings for both collections

The first thing that seems obvious when you look at the Top 20s for both collections is that the same countries mostly appear on the list, but in very different rankings. For example, France is No. 2 in the founding collection, but No. 16 in the second collection with a fifth as many objects. Equally Egypt which is at No. 2 in the second collection only appears at No. 17 in the founding collection with less than a sixth of the size of collection. The countries that appear on both lists are (with respective rankings afterwards in parenthesis): UK and Ireland [1], France [2/ 16], USA [3/ 10], India [4/ 7], Italy [9/ 11], Japan [10/ 6], China [11, 17], Switzerland [12/ 4], New Guinea [14/ 5], Egypt [17/ 2], South Africa [18/ 13], Cyprus [20/ 3]. France, Cyprus, Egypt and the USA show the most divergent rankings for countries that appear on both lists. There are some countries that only appear in one collection's Top 20. For the founding collection these are: Canada, Andaman Islands, Australia, Denmark, Gabon, Argentina, Nicobar Islands, and the Solomon Islands. For the second collection these are: Israel / Palestine, Germany, Greece, Nigeria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Turkey and Fiji.

AP, 26 May 2010

Notes

[1] There are a lot of items which might be from either USA or Canada and are therefore double-counted, this obviously would affect their rankings if the items could be reliably provenanced.

[2] 'India' includes Bangladesh, Bhutan and Pakistan but excludes Andaman and Nicobars

[3] China includes Taiwan