Justine Wintjes, Curator at the KwaZulu-Natal Museum, has just returned from a ‘digital storytelling’ workshop at the Nairobi National Museum (National Museums of Kenya). The workshop included Mwanaima Salim, Hellen Otete, Jonathan Kiprop, Lydia Nafula and June Munoru from NMK, joined by Sara Watson of the Field Museum in Chicago and Jonathan Lim of the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies at the University of Arkansas.

Workshop participants spent a week examining and digitizing materials housed in the museum and sharing stories. We aim to curate some of these stories online in the near future.

The workshop took place under under the 'Reframing the African past' project supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council [grant number AH/Y00597X/1].

Preparing the iconic Siwa for photogrammetry - one of only two known Siwas, side-blown horns used by Swahili leaders in the 17th and 18th centuries. This Siwa was made from two elephant tusks in 1688 and came from Pate Island. (The second one is on display at Lamu Museum.) Photo: Jonathan Lim.

A treasure trove in the storerooms: an impressive collection of beadwork represents communities across Kenya. Photo: Jonathan Lim.

Here we are photographing a Kamba kitete (beaded gourd container) from Kitui County to create a 3D model. Photo: Justine Wintjes.

The Nairobi National Museum falls within a larger inner-city yet wonderfully leafy campus that includes the Heritage Restaurant, Botanical Garden, Snake Park, a ‘Garden of Hope’ – a medicinal garden for cancer patients  – and a portion of preserved indigenous forest titled, The Forest Returns. A visit is highly recommended!

Dr. Ghilraen Laue is currently part of an exciting excavation project at the newly established research center at Kaingo Game Reserve. As one of the first researchers to work at this state-of-the-art facility, Dr. Laue is collaborating with a team of experts on the excavation of Pride Rock, a site of significant archaeological interest. The ongoing project is organized by Professor Lyn Wadley from the Evolutionary Studies Institute, Wits University, and includes leading researchers such as Dr. Rosa Moll (Wits University), Dr. Bongekile Zwane (University of Johannesburg), and Dr. Chrissie Sievers (Wits University).

18 September 2024 

Continued excavations at the site of Pride Rock, first excavated in 2023

Dr Bongekile Zwane, University of Johannesburg and Dr Rosa Moll,Wits University

Professor Lyn Wadley from the Evolutionary Studies Institute, Wits University, and Dr. Chrissie Sievers from Wits University sorting through excavated material at the Pride Rock site.

19 September 2024

Today we were visited on site by internationally renowned conservationist Clive Walker (picture with Dr Laue)

Dr Laue Mapping her recent findings

21 September 2024

Working on a big 5 Game Reserve means we need armed rangers with us when we do survey work, but it also means we see many different animals on our drive to and from the site each day.

Michael and Jaque keeping us safe

We were joined by Pieter Norval from Metohm South Africa and Linda Prinsloo (Wits University). They used a handheld Raman Spectrometer for non-destructive material identification of rock art pigments.

Pieter and Linda at work at Kaingo Sheep Shelter

Back in the on site lab at the Kaingo Research Centre Pieter and Linda used a portable laboratory Raman spectrometer and a desktop FTIR spectrometer for analysis of some of the material removed from the excavations. These two methods are complementary and among other things allowed us to confirm the presence of an ancient hearth.

24 September 2024

Working on Heritage Day!

Find from this morning, grooved stone for either bead making or arrow straightening.

Some pictures of the Kaingo sheep shelter where Pieter and Linda did the Raman Analysis spoken about above

28 September 2024

Maggie Loubser with the XRF spectrometer at Rock art site DWA 6

Maggie Loubser and Salomé ale Roux, from the University of Pretoria, joined the team. They used a handheld XRF spectrometer for non-invasive elemental analysis of the rock art pigment as well as Ultraviolet induced visible photography to look at the difference in fluorescence between different white pigments. The analysis is still in progress, but we hope that these non-destructive methods will be able to give us further insights into the rock art pigments used in the Waterberg.

We had to wait until dark for Salomé to do her Ultraviolet Induced Photography

Some of the preliminary results of the above photography

 

 

120 Years in 120 Objects

Join the KwaZulu-Natal Museum in celebrating the museum’s 120^th year of orbiting the sun. Staff and guest curators have chosen one object or item per year of our existence to highlight to the public. Visit the website and our social media platforms regularly to see the latest object and keep an eye out for information about a physical exhibition later this year!

Today’s Object is from 1980

Death Jewellery by Inandi Maree, Senior Exhibitions Manager

This unusual necklace made from snake vertebrae was accessioned into the museum in 1980. Unfortunately, no provenance was provided for the necklace and therefore it is not possible to identify the woman and little girl in the ivory locket. The Victorian era saw the extensive use of death jewellery, or memento mori. Death jewellery was worn when mourning the passing of a loved one and was made from materials which lacked lustre, such as jet, vulcanite or onyx. The poor reflective qualities of the jewellery symbolised the absence of life. It was also common to add a piece of hair and/or an image of the deceased. A snake eating its own tail was a recurring symbol, indicating that the deceased will live on eternally in the memories of the wearer. This particularly rare necklace has all these mentioned elements; the vertebrae and ivory lack lustre, the snake portion of the necklace has no head or tail and is linked in a circle. Instead of hair, there are photographs of a woman and a girl. A mother and daughter, perhaps? We might never know. All we can be sure of is that the memory of them has been living on for more than a century. 

Victorian memento mori locket made out of snake vertebrae and ivory.