Title
Sacred stone (club head)
circa 6000 BCE-circa 1000 BCE
collected 1969
Artists
Unknown Artist
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Details
- Other Titles
- Club head
Ritual stone - Place where the work was made
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Tegibo
→
Southern Highlands Province
→
Papua New Guinea
- Cultural origin
- Woala (Wola) people
- Dates
- circa 6000 BCE-circa 1000 BCE
collected 1969 - Media category
- Ceremonial object
- Materials used
- stone, hammer-pecked with 12 stars, red pigment
- Dimensions
- 8.5 cm diameter; 5.0 cm width
- Credit
- Gift of Stan Moriarty 1977
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 565.1979
- Copyright
- © Wola people, under the endorsement of the Pacific Islands Museums Association's (PIMA) Code of Ethics
- Share
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About
Cults associated with sacred stones were once prevalent throughout the highlands. Sacred stones included oddly shaped river rocks or unearthed objects created by ancient highlands cultures, such as mortars, pestles, club heads and zoomorphic figurines. Ancestral and other spirits resided in these earthly forms, establishing a direct link with the spiritual world. The Enga people believed sacred stones were handed down from the 'sky people' who came to earth and created mankind; others thought they were the petrified bones of the ancestors. Stored in ritual houses or buried at sacred sites, stones were 'fed' the blood or fat of pigs on ritual occasions.
Archaeologists believe prehistoric stone mortars were used to grind seeds and nuts for nourishment, and pigments for ceremonies.
[Exhibition text for 'Plumes and pearlshells: art of the New Guinea highlands', AGNSW, 2014]
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Exhibition history
Shown in 1 exhibition
Plumes and pearlshells: art of the New Guinea highlands, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 30 May 2014–10 Aug 2014
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Bibliography
Referenced in 1 publication
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Natalie Wilson (Editor), Plumes and pearlshells: art of the New Guinea highlands, Sydney, 2014, 70 (colour illus.), 160. cat.no. 14
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