24. Report of the Curator of the Rivers Museum for the year ending 31 July 1974
During the year under review the allocation of No. 60 Banbury Road was announced for the use of the Pitt Rivers Museum, and the benefaction made in June by Mr. Francis Baden-Powell of a capital sum of £10,000 to enable the University to make ready an annexe to the Pitt Rivers Museum to contain inter alia a Quaternary Research Centre in memory of his late father's sixteen years of teaching and research at the Pitt Rivers.
The executors of the late Mr. Lewis Balfour, only son of the first Curator and the Museum's most generous benefactor to date, have informed the Curator that the Museum has inherited his collection of Scandinavian and Eskimo artefacts, already acquired, as well as a half share in the residual estate, of which the Pitt Rivers has so far received £100,000.
Following studies by a sub-committee of the Faculty Board, legislation was enacted during the year for the establishment of a B.Phil. course in Prehistoric Archaeology. This will make possible the even more intensive use for teaching of the incomparable collections of artefacts, as envisaged by the Founder.
In this, the first full operating year of the new Conservation Laboratory, financed jointly by the Pitt Rivers Museum and the South East Area Museums Service, the mutual value of the collaboration venture has demonstrably proved its value to twelve local museums as well as to the Pitt Rivers itself, with its overwhelming problems due to space shortage and physical deterioration, largely the result of ageing and adverse ecological conditions. The building of a fumigation chamber will be completed early in 1975.
Once again it is a pleasure to acknowledge with gratitude the indispensable work of our three Honorary Assistant Curators, Miss B.M. Blackwood, Mrs. E. Sandford Gunn, and Mr. G.E.S. Turner, and of our Honorary Archivist, Mr. Stephen Bach.
Acknowledgements
The collections have been enriched during the year by the following donations, which are gratefully acknowledged: Mr. Lewis Balfour: Large wooden Norwegian marriage chest, various wooden vessels and Eskimo bone figurines. Dr. A.J. Butt Colson: Baby sling from the Arecuna tribe, Guiana, S. America. Mr. T. Dew: Fine example of smoking-pipe and pipe case. Probably German, nineteenth century. Miss E.M. Ingalls: A carved wooden model of a ceremonial canoe manned by twelve pairs of paddlemen conveying King Bell of Bell Town to hold palaver. Miss H. Kirkby-Gomes: A Chinese full-length red embroidered satin coat and a circular stone disc on ornately carved wooden stand, possibly used for astronomical purposes, from China. Professor O.R. Gurney: Two wooden toys with movable parts. Probably from Burma. Dr. K.P. Oakley: Plaque commemorating the opening of Les Eyzies site museum, 1939. Cast of human head carved on an ammonite, Celtic, from Wiltshire. Brooch and pendant incorporating fossil teeth. Mrs. Hewitt Pitt of Marlow: eight albums of photographs taken on the NW. Frontier between 1890 and 1920 by her late father, Sir Armine Dew, K.C.I.E., C.S.I. Mrs. E.M. Robertson: Seven bowman's thumb rings from Bornu, N. Nigeria, and one ring for stringing bow, Tiv tribe, N. Nigeria. Dr. W. Rosenbaum: fifth century A.D. mirror plaque from a tomb in Israel. Mr. H.J. Spinks: Woman's pillow, from the Chinese in Malaya; two wooden tops, Malaya; bridal bed decorations, from the Malays of Brunei, Borneo. Mr. C.R. Stonor: Priest's body cloth and rich man's body cloth, from the Apa Tani tribe, Assam. Miss I.M. Taylor: Pair of carriage candles used in Gower, S. Wales, 1860-7. Miss F. Spencer-Taylor: Woven beadwork strip with intricate pattern from Canada, and fine woven wool head square from Kashmir. Dr. R.F. Tylecote: Portion of slag from modern experimental bloomery smelt. Major J.H. Warren: Wooden helmet mask from the Mende tribe, Sierra Leone.
Publications
Dr. A.J. Colson. 'Inter-tribal trade in the Guiana Highlands.' Antropologica, No. 34, 1973 (pp. 1-70), published by Instituto Caribe de Antropologia y Sociologia, Fundacion La Salle de Ciencias Naturales, Caracas.
Dr. Schuyler Jones. Men of Influence in Nuristan. The Seminar Press, London and New York.
Dr. D.A. Roe. 'Palaeolithic flints from Henfield, Sussex.' Archaeological Collections, III, pp. 108-9.
Dr. D.A. Roe. Review of Henry de Lumley-Woodyear's Le paleolithique inférieur et moyen du midi mediterraneen dans son cadre geologique, Tome II. Antiquaries Journal, 53: 1: 83-5.
Dr. I.N. Stevenson. Andean Village Technology. Maps, figures, and 8 plates. Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.
Mr. D.B. Tayler. The Music of some Indian Tribes of Colombia (Notes and commentary on the Moser-Tayler Collection). The British Institute of Recorded Sound, London, 1972.
B.E.B. FAGG
