dagger (weapons: edged)

General view of whole of Horniman Museum object no 8.78
General view of whole of Horniman Museum object no 8.78
General view of whole of Horniman Museum object no 8.78 General view of whole of Horniman Museum object no 8.78

Dravidian Indian dagger, made from a flat piece of horn. The dagger was carved longitudinally from a single bovine horn and follows its natural re-curved shape. This re-curved shape is found on a great many Indian steel dagger blades which all owe their form to horn predecessors. It may be safely assumed that Dravidian daggers of this exact type pre-date man’s discovery of metals. The hilt part of the dagger is decorated with small and repeated incised circles and dots, which are often to be found filled with crumbled zinc foil for effect. This example is most probably 19th century.

Label: one exhibition label, printed.

fighting

object
MUSEUM NUMBER
8.78
Date
19th century
PLACE
COLLECTION
MEASUREMENTS
overall: 336.55 mm
MATERIAL/TECHNIQUE
horn
CATEGORY
Anthropology: Ethnography
LOCATION
In storage
SHAREABLE LINK

Continue exploring anthropology

Collection Information

These objects are only a part of our collections, of which there are more than 350,000 objects. This information comes from our collections database. Some of this is incomplete and there may be errors. This part of the website is also still under construction, so there may be some fields repeated or incorrectly formatted information.

The database sometimes uses language taken from historical documents to help research, which may now appear outdated and even offensive. The database also includes information on objects that are considered secret or sacred by some communities.

If you have any further information about objects in our collections or can suggest corrections to our information, please contact us: enquiry@horniman.ac.uk