120 Years in 120 Objects
Join the KwaZulu-Natal Museum in celebrating the museumโs 120th 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!
Todayโs 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.
