Lot 180 Dα

Provenienz

Collected in situ by Jim Erkilla, a missionary in the Southern Highlands in the late 1950s/1960s. The figure was found during excavations to build a road.

A similar stone fgure, donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1984 (1984.123.1), was collected in the Mendi region. Its website entry states that one example, through its associated organic material, has been dated to circa 1500B.C. The figure may depict an echidna, an egg-laying mammal native to New Guinea and Australia. Their original significance is unknown but when such figures are unearthed today they are considered supernaturally powerful and play an important role in religious life.