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 2023

Squashed Styrofoam cup by Igor Muratov, Curator of Mollusca

That is what happens to a Styrofoam cup if you submerge it 4000 metres below the surface of the Indian Ocean. The pressure at that depth is, approximately, 400 bar, or ~ 408 kilograms per square centimetre. All the air was squeezed out of the “foam” [by water pressure and not by a Dumbo Octopus (Grimpoteuthis) that lives at that depth] and the cup shrunk to approximately 40% of its original size. This cup journeyed to the bottom of the Ocean during a research trip aboard the S.A. Agulhas II in 2023. For reference, the Titanic sank at a depth of 3840 metres in 1912.

Animals that live at that depth do not “shrink” like that because their internal pressure equals the water pressure. However, if an animal that normally lives at that depth would surface rapidly, gases that are dissolved in its blood will bubble out the same way as when we open a bottle of Champagne.

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 Collection is from 1930

The Bowden Collection by Dimakatso Tlhoaele, Collections Officer

Mr Denys Bowden joined the KwaZulu-Natal Museum’s (then Natal Museum) board of trustees in 1961 and served in that position for 23 years. He also collected objects from the  1930s onwards. He was principally interested in Zulu culture and history, especially in the northern KwaZulu-Natal regions. He did extensive collecting in the Bergville area recording the amaNgwane and amaHlubi tribes. He also worked on the Zulu Royal Court at Umgungundlovu and some significant pieces in the KwaZulu-Natal Museum come from this area. On his death in 1987, his wife donated his collection to the Museum. The collection comprises 969 items, which are accessioned into the Anthropology Collection.

A small sample of the items from the Bowden Collection.

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 1970

Hanging Flies: Jason Londt’s first publication by Mandisa Ndlovu, Research Technician, Natural Sciences

Jason Londt, who would go on to become one of South Africa’s leading entomologists, published his first scientific article in 1970. The article was a description of Bittacus tjederi, a species belonging to the order Mecoptera. While his research focus was the taxonomy of Afrotropical Asilidae, he also contributed to the taxonomy of Mecoptera and collected impressive numbers of other Diptera and Hemiptera. He published over a dozen papers on Mecoptera during his career, describing a genus as well as 16 species and re-describing six species that created new synonymies.

The order Mecoptera is a small group of insects represented by a single family in the Afrotropics, the Bittacidae. There are currently three genera in the region, the monotypic Anomalobittacus Kimmins, (described in 1928), Afrobittacus Londt (described in 1994), and the largest genus Bittacus Latreille (described in 1805). While Bittacus can be common, adults often only fly for short periods, meaning that many regional lists underestimate the true species richness and so opportunities for expanding our knowledge exist in many regions. Mecoptera are also known as hanging flies.  They are predators and spend much of their time hanging by their front legs with their rear legs dangling in the air to catch unsuspecting insects that fly by.

Bittacus tjederi constitutes a distinctive species of hanging flies which is distributed between Makhanda and Citrusdal in the southern parts of South Africa (Londt 1978). The Bittacus tjederi holotype was found in South Africa (Cape: Goedehoop [farm] Heidelberg District - 34°05'S:20057'E).

B. tjederi collected in 1969 (Image by Mandisa Ndlovu)

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 1922

Fuze’s Gourd by Justine Wintjes, Curator of Anthropology

In 1922 Magema Magwaza Fuze published Abantu Abamnyama in Pietermaritzburg, which was the first book-length publication in Zulu by a Zulu-speaker. Fuze died later that year and the book marked the culmination of a long life of thinking and writing.

Hlonipha Mokoena recently described Fuze as one of the ‘treasures of African intellectual history’. His body of work has regained significance in contemporary times for the ways it brings aspects of isiZulu life in the past into the present.

‘Magema de Fuza’ donated a beer gourd to the Museum in 1904, the year it opened to the public. In doing so, Fuze was actively participating in the creation of the modern world.

This gourd was once used for utshwala (beer). Neat stitches of plant fibre bind its cracks together and streaks of utshwala mark its outer surface.

Fuze’s legacy as a philosopher and historian lives on in his published works, and in his beer vessel.

Magema Fuze (Campbell Collections of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, File 2 of the Fuze papers, KCB1127)

 Fuze’s gourd is on display in the upper galleries of the Museum.