Africa The Africa collection includes 15,400 ethnographic, 3,490 historical (mainly from Egypt), and more than 140,000 prehistoric archaeological objects. The strongest collections are: Madagascar Ethnographic Collection-This collection of 3,770 objects was made by Ralph Linton in 1925. It is well documented in his notes, and is the most systematic of the Museum's African holdings. All Malagasy tribes are represented, with special attention paid to the Imerina, Tanala and Betsileo. While the 500 traditional textiles in the collection have received the most attention from scholars, the collection is also strong in wood carvings, weapons and ironwork. This collection is the largest and best-provenanced Madagascan collection in the United States. Angola Ethnographic Collection-The Field Museum's Angola Collection was made in 1929 by Wilfred Hambly while he was the Museum's Curator of African Ethnology. The 850 objects are primarily from the Ovimbundu tribe. Cameroon Ethnographic Collection-The Cameroon Grasslands collection, numbering 2,500 objects, was made prior to World War I while Cameroon was under German colonial rule. The Museum purchased the collection in 1925 from New York dealer, Jan Kleykamp. The Field Museum previously loaned one third of this collection for inclusion in the Smithsonian exhibition, "The Art of Cameroon," which travelled widely within the United States. Benin Ethnographic Collection-The Benin collection of 400 objects includes wood sculptures, hide fans, and cast brass, ivory, and beaten brass objects. It is one of the Museum's most significant African collections both in terms of artistic worth and monetary value. Half of the collection was donated to the Museum by Captain and Mrs. A.W.F. Fuller, and the remainder was purchased earlier this century by the Museum. Except for a few recent ethnographic objects, the entire collection dates to the Benin Punitive Expedition of 1897. While some of the objects may be dated stylistically to the 17th century, no definitive assessment has been conducted. Miscellaneous African Ethnographic Collections-In addition to the above, the Museum's African collections include 1,000 objects from North Africa, 1,200 objects from the Sudan, 300 objects from the East Horn area, 700 objects from the Congo region, 3,780 objects from East and South Africa and 3,100 objects from West Africa. While this material is not as systematic as the collections described above, it extends the ethnographic scope of the Museum's Africa collection. It also includes many objects of high artistic value, especially within the West Africa collection. Egypt Archaeological Collection-This collection contains approximately 3,490 objects. Edward E. Ayer began to assemble the Museum's Egyptian collections in Cairo and Alexandria in 1894. His purchases included funerary objects, such as mummies, coffins, ushabtis, Books of the Dead and canopic jars; wood, stone and bronze images; and fragments of stone reliefs from the period of the Middle Kingdom through the Roman era. In 1907-8 Ayer added two intact chapel rooms from the tombs of Unis-ankh and Netcher-user to the Museum's collections. Pre-dynastic collections of pottery and stone vessels, flints, and offering objects from the early to late periods were donated to the Museum by Sir William M. Flinders Petrie, H.W. Seton-Karr, and Gertrude Caton Thompson. In 1944, the Egypt collection was further enhanced through the gift of the Gurley collection, which consisted of jewelry, scarabs, canopic jars, ushabtis, and statuettes. Notable within the collection is the funerary boat of Sen-Wosret, one of only six known to be outside of Egypt. This comprehensive Egypt collection also includes Coptic textiles, stone, bronze, and pottery pieces. Tanzania Prehistory Collection-In 1957 and 1958 a field party from the University of Chicago collected 7,500 stone artifacts from the Isimila Prehistoric Site in the Central Highlands of Tanzania. A majority of these specimens, recovered from the Acheulian levels of the site, was dated by the Uranium-series method as more than a quarter of a million years old, but is now suspected to be considerably older. A smaller collection of Middle Stone Age and later artifacts were obtained from higher, more recent deposits at the site and from neighboring localities. South African Prehistory Collection-This collections is from University of Chicago excavations at the Nelson Bay Cave Site along the southern African coast. The material was excavated from the Middle Stone Age levels at the site which are regarded to be more than 60,000 years old, and perhaps as much as 120,000 years old. Of particular interest are artifacts that are similar to those believed by historians and archaeologists to be the work of the earliest anatomically modern humans. Miscellaneous Prehistory Collections-In addition to the two prehistory collections described above, another 3,100 specimens, mainly stone artifacts, are derived from other locations evenly dispersed between northern and sub-Saharan Africa. The northern African material, mostly Neolithic and late Paleolithic, was collected from sites scattered from Morocco to Egypt. The remaining material, mostly from the Later and Middle Stone Ages, was collected from sites in eastern, central and southern Africa. Other Anthropology Collections: Africa | Asia | Australia | Europe | Middle and South America | North America | Pacific | Textiles-Asia and Africa