{"id":"MUS2026-346","label":"Thirteen unprovenanced New Guinea blades","people_or_site":"New Guinea","country_current":"Papua New Guinea","historic_region":"Papuan Gulf (by style); locality unrecorded","macroregion":"Oceania / New Guinea","local_name":"","source_term":"Rhombe","source_language":"French","object_description":"Eleven engraved wooden blades collected as one lot, early twentieth century, painted red, black and white. Two more unprovenanced Papua New Guinea rhombi, 38 and 31.8 centimetres, are in the Musée d'ethnographie de Neuchâtel, V.826 and V.827: near-twins in length, nothing alike in outline, the larger still carrying its cord.","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"issoudun_2000_09_462_893","source_type":"museum_collection","source_url":"https://mimo-international.com/MIMO/detailstatic.aspx?RSC_BASE=IFD&RSC_DOCID=OAI_CIMU_ALOES_0875504&TITLE=%2Frhombe&_lg=fr-FR","page_or_plate":"2000.09.462.893","map_confidence":"low_medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Papuan Gulf coast between the Purari delta and Kerema, placed by style: the catalogue gives only New Guinea, but the incised face-figures and notched cord ends are the Gulf type (compare MUS2026-093, Iari, Purari delta). A regional anchor, not a findspot.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Eleven blades came out of New Guinea as one lot, engraved and painted in red, black and white, catalogued at sixty centimetres, no two silhouettes alike. The catalogue names no place, but the carving does: a long-bodied figure with ringed eyes cut down half the blade, the cord end notched like a mouth, as on the roarers of the Purari delta and the Gulf of Papua. They ended up in Issoudun, a market town in the middle of France, because the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart keep their mother house there: more than a thousand objects came back to it from their Pacific stations between the late nineteenth century and 1939, and this handful of roaring boards came back with them. Neuchâtel's ethnographic museum keeps two more, making thirteen.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"","cls":"unknown","class_label":"Function not recorded","color":"#6B7884","is_candidate":false,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Musée de l'Hospice Saint-Roch / MIMO, 2000.09.462.893 (lot of eleven)","url":"https://mimo-international.com/MIMO/detailstatic.aspx?RSC_BASE=IFD&RSC_DOCID=OAI_CIMU_ALOES_0875504&TITLE=%2Frhombe&_lg=fr-FR","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013035531/https://mimo-international.com/MIMO/detailstatic.aspx?RSC_BASE=IFD&RSC_DOCID=OAI_CIMU_ALOES_0875504&TITLE=%2Frhombe&_lg=fr-FR"}],"source_citations":"Musée de l'Hospice Saint-Roch / MIMO, 2000.09.462.893 (lot of eleven)","source_display":"Musée de l'Hospice Saint-Roch / MIMO, 2000.09.462.893 (lot of eleven)","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Eleven engraved wooden blades collected as one lot, early twentieth century, painted red, black and white. Two more unprovenanced Papua New Guinea rhombi, 38 and 31.8 centimetres, are in the Musée d'ethnographie de Neuchâtel, V.826 and V.827: near-twins in length, nothing alike in outline, the larger still carrying its cord.","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"low to medium","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"new guinea","display_name":"Thirteen unprovenanced New Guinea blades","image":{"full":"assets/objects/museum_harvest2/MUS2026-346_mimo_2000-09-462-893.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/museum_harvest2/thumbs/MUS2026-346_mimo_2000-09-462-893_thumb.jpg","credit":"Musée de l'Hospice Saint-Roch, Issoudun (2000.9.462.893) — via MIMO","license":"License unstated — via MIMO; rehosted for non-commercial research","source_page":"https://mimo-international.com/MIMO/detailstatic.aspx?RSC_BASE=IFD&RSC_DOCID=OAI_CIMU_ALOES_0875504&TITLE=%2Frhombe&_lg=fr-FR","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Three of the eleven engraved blades in the Issoudun lot, each head carved differently.","last_modified":"2026-09-01","additional":[{"full":"assets/objects/museum_harvest2/MUS2026-349_men_V-826.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/museum_harvest2/thumbs/MUS2026-349_men_V-826_thumb.jpg","credit":"Musée d'ethnographie de Neuchâtel (V.826/V.827), Texpo 13 catalogue","license":"© MEN 2008 — rehosted low-res for non-commercial research","source_page":"https://www.men.ch/fileadmin/sites/men/files/Documents/texpos/MEN2008_La_marque_jeune_Texpo13.pdf (p.12 of PDF, printed page 12)","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"The larger Neuchâtel blade, its cord still hitched to it."},{"full":"assets/objects/museum_harvest2/MUS2026-349_men_V-827.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/museum_harvest2/thumbs/MUS2026-349_men_V-827_thumb.jpg","credit":"Musée d'ethnographie de Neuchâtel (V.826/V.827), Texpo 13 catalogue","license":"© MEN 2008 — rehosted low-res for non-commercial research","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"The smaller Neuchâtel blade, pale designs banded across the midline."}]},"slug":"mus2026-346-people-unrecorded"}