Bird Shaped Pestle

Illustration

by Jade Koekoe
published on 09 January 2017

Bird Shaped Pestle — A bird-shaped pestle. Stone, 6000-2000 BCE. Oro Province, Papua New Guinea.

Most modern vegetables and cereals were first cultivated around 10,000 years ago. This pestle was made for grinding taro, one of the crops farmers in Papua New Guinea started to cultivate at around this time. This pestle's unusual bird shape suggests it may have been a ritual or festive object.

This image was taken at the National Museum of Australia in the British Museums travelling exhibition A History of the World in 100 (and 1) Objects.

About the Author

Jade Koekoe

Jade is a Librarian with an avid interest in Roman and Greek architecture and ancient Middle-Eastern cultures.

License

Uploaded by Jade Koekoe, published on 09 January 2017 under the following license: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.

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