Context (Field collection)
This mug was purchased on 16 March 2000 from the gift shop on Robben Island, off Cape Town, South Africa.

This object was collected by Julia Tanner while undertaking fieldwork in South Africa from March-May 2000. The fieldwork was financed by MAA's Crowther-Beynon Fund, in order to research and update MAA's South African collections.
Event Date 16/3/2000
Author: Mark Elliott

Context (Production / use)
The mug represents part of the material culture of a new democratic South Africa. Robben Island is a particularly charged icon of this new country and is perhaps the most potent symbol of the liberation struggle and its victory over racism, brutality and inequality. The mug is also a vehicle in a process of identity transformation. Over a period of several hundred years the identity of Robben Island has undergone many changes, from prehistoric settlement to leper colony to prison. The mug now documents its identity as a museum and symbol of freedom.
Robben Island is South Africa's biggest coastal island. Since the early days of colonial history Robben Island was used as a place of banishment and imprisonment. The incarcerated included rebel slaves, political and religious leaders, leprosy sufferers and the mentally ill. Robben Island is particularly infamous as the prison where Nelson Mandela and many other black political prisoners were detained during the apartheid era. Between 1961 and 1991 the prison held over 3000 inmates, including members of a variety of organisations such as the ANC, PAC, SACP, NUM, SWAPO, AZAPO and UDF. Today Robben Island is a National Museum, National Monument and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The last political prisoners were released from the island in 1991, and the last criminal prisoners in 1996. Robben Island Museum opened to the public on 1 January 1997 and seeks to be a living museum, where ex-prisoners are employed by the museum and visitors are encouraged to interact with them as part of a "living legacy experience". In December 1999 Robben Island became South Africa's first World Heritage Site, together with the Sterkfontein Caves Complex and St Lucia Wetland Park. Ahmed Kathrada, a former prisoner, has described the significance of Robben Island: "While we will not forget the brutality of apartheid, we will not want Robben Island to be a monument to our hardship and suffering. We would want Robben Island to be a monument...reflecting the triumph of the human spirit against the forces of evil. A triumph of non-racialism over bigotry and intolerance. A triumph of a new South Africa over the old" (1993). On Heritage Day 1997, Nelson Mandela stated: "Robben Island is a vital part of South Africa's collective heritage. The people of South Africa as a whole, together with the international community, have turned one of the world's most notorious symbols of oppression into a worldwide icon of the universality of human rights, hope, peace and reconciliation".
(More information about Robben Island can be found at its offical web site: www.robben-island.org.za/. Information about its World Heritage status can be found at: www.robben-island.org.za/whs_odendaal.htm. Further information can be found at: www.freedom.co.za. Also see a copy of the Robben Island visitor information booklet in the UCMAA archives).
Event Date 2001
Author: maa

Description (Physical description)
White ceramic mug branded with the words "Robben Island Museum" and decorated with a sequence of green, orange and purple figures against a blue splash background. The figures represent a process of transformation and development, signifying the liberation of Robben Island and the freedom of a new South Africa. This process is depicted by a green undefined figure, a more defined orange figure and a purple figure with arms uplifted. The mug is marked at the base with the wording "Muggy".
Event Date 5/5/2012
Author: maa

Description (Physical description)
White ceramic mug from Robben Island Museum, printed with the museum's name and decorated with green, orange and purple figures against a blue splash background, and marked at the base with the word "Muggy".
Event Date 21/2/2020
Author: Mark Elliott