Description (Physical description)
[From catalogue card 1924.1187 A-K]: 'Eleven stone axe -blades' Written in a different hand, in black ink: 'A-B Hill people for 5-7000 feet, the rest are from Coast. '[in pencil] exhibited in Case 23'. Written in pencil: 'E.H.K exhibited in Case 24'
Event Date 1/11/1998
Author: Katrina Dring

Description (Physical description)
[From catalogue card 1924.1187 A-B]: 'Stone axe-heads.'[From replacement catalogue card 1924.1187 A-K:] ‘West Irian (Dutch New Guinea) No Provenance Eleven Stone Axe blades

Event Date 21/7/2015
Author: Katrina Dring

Description (Labels & Markings)
[Labels and inscriptions:] Written on all objects, in black ink: 'D.N.G.'. All stones also have their number written on them.
Event Date 21/7/2015
Author: Katrina Dring

Context (Amendments / updates)
K. Haslwanter and E.C. Blake (Pacific Presences Project) 2015.8.24
Event Date 24/8/2015
Author: Katrina Dring

Context (Amendments / updates)
The numbering sequence of this material is unclear, but it appears that part of the collection was listed by A.C. Haddon & J.W. Layard in their “Report on the Ethnographical Collections from the Utakwa river made by A.F.R. Wollaston” after its arrival in the museum. Some items were not accessioned but were returned to Wollaston, (see OA2/12/3 ‘List of articles ret. to him [Wollaston]’, stamped 25 March 1914).

The remaining items appear to have been listed as a collection in the Blue Book (1914.231), as the number of items is now 187, which is less than the 257 noted by Haddon & Layard. The ‘Accessions List’ noted in the Blue Book cannot yet be located. The items were then listed in unnumbered groups in preparation for the Annual Report (See OA2/12/3 ‘Combined list (rough) used for compiling the list of Wollaston Collection (Utakwa River, D.N. Guinea, for 1914 List in Annual Report’). Only then does the Accessions Register seems to have been compiled, by sticking in a copy of the Annual Report to the Register.

Each object in the Wollaston collection has four numbers assigned to it. These are viz:
- Accession register numbers: E 1914.231.1-187 (These correspond to the Blue Book numbers which seem to have been the first assigned numbers of the collection: BB 1914.231.1-187)
- Annual report numbers: AR 1914.371.1-187
- Wollaston field collection numbers: 1- 257 (Haddon & Layard)

The so-called Haddon & Layard numbers (H&L) , according to Karen Jacobs (2004: 2) are based on the original object numbers given by Wollaston in the field. Most of the objects in the MAA Wollaston collection have a number (written directly onto the object or on labels which are adhered to the objects) which are a combination of the Blue Book/Accession number (1914.231) with the running suffix from Wollaston field collection numbers, (1-257), which were also used in Haddon & Layard’s report. These numbers are now prefixed on the database as BBW (Blue Book with Wollaston suffix, e.g., e.g. 1914.231.1- 257) to differentiate them from the accession numbers.

(See Wollaston object labels in OA2/12/2.) These are pre-printed British Museum labels with handwritten annotations to which are adhered small green square labels with printed numbers. These are Wollaston’s field numbers and some of these two labels types are also found on MAA objects. Any missing objects from the number sequences of the Haddon and Layard numbers are probably those items which were returned to Wollaston.

It seems that some of these objects came back to the museum as the 1924 and 1925 collections (for example, the ‘Roll of tobacco coiled round a short stick’ shown as No 18 on Plate II of Haddon & Layard (1916: 10, 80 and 81), with the Wollaston field collection number ‘222’, reappears in the museum records as 1925.469).

Further information on the Wollaston collection can be found in:
Report on the Ethnographic Collection from the Utakwa river made by A.F.R. Wollaston. by A.C. Haddon and J. W. Layard, with a Note by A. von Hugel." The Report was printed as part of the British Ornithologists' Union, ‘Report on the Collections made by the British Ornithologists' Union Expedition and the Wollaston Expedition in Dutch New Guinea 1910- 13’, 2 vols. Francis Edwards, London, 1916, Vol. II, part 19.

Jacobs, Karen. 2004. Report: analysis of the collection assembled by A.F.R. Wollaston in Dutch New Guinea (1910- 13). Unpublished Crowther Beynon report on the MAA Wollaston Collection.
Event Date 28/8/2015
Author: Katrina Dring