Museum Adds Rare Items

IMPORTANT ADDITIONS TO the ethnographical and archaeological collections of the Dartmouth College Museum were made early in November, when Curator W. Wedgwood Bowen received three large cases of specimens purchased last summer from the Reading Museum in England. One third of the new acquisitions consist of ancient Egyptian pottery, while the remainder consist of specimens illustrating the material culture of several modern races of primitive mankind.

The cases destined for Dartmouth were on the high seas when war was declared, and great relief was felt by Museum officials when they reached this country a few days after the Athenia was sunk. Because of stringent regulations regarding archaeological excavations in Egypt, small museums are not equipped for research in this field and are seldom able to procure ancient Egyptian items such as those obtained by the College. Examples of pottery in the collection range from pre-dynastic times—some 3,000 to 4,000 years ago—up to the Roman period.

Especially valuable in the material relating to modern races of primitive mankind is a very complete collection from Uganda, East Africa, which is important as the probable center of dispersal of the Negro in Africa and as the gateway through which metallurgy, pottery, cattle-raising, and other domestic arts were introduced to the "dark continent" some three or four thousand years ago. Other examples in the Museum's new acquisitions are from Australia, New Zealand, the Solomon Islands, and "various parts of Africa.

The collection from Uganda cannot be duplicated in Africa today outside of a museum. The greater part of the population of Uganda, both Hamitic and Bantu, has been converted to Christianity, and primitive culture is rapidly being displaced by European customs.