timhunkin/pitt river museum collecting box

engineer

tim .

. hunkin

cartoonist

THE ANTHROPOLOGISTS’ FUND RAISING RITUAL
Pitt Rivers Museum Collecting box, Oxford, 1996
.

	The Pitt Rivers is a wonderful museum of anthropology, and the history of anthropology. It has remained a classic victorian style museum, crammed with objects, divided into sensible straightforward categories like medicines, armaments, firelighting etc, most with hand written labels, often entertainingly idiosyncratic.

		When a visitor approaches the collecting box, the wooden anthropologists inside rise up and point accusingly (their eyes also glow). When a coin is inserted the anthropologists lean over, a gesture originally intended as a bow, but appears more as if they are simply inspecting the donation.

	The wooden anthropologists are all based on real anthropologists who contributed to the museum’s collection – the style inspired by the museum’s collection of African carvings.

Schuyler jones.jpg (7385 bytes)

A booklet about the collection box, with details about the figures and their mechanisms, is available from the museum.

Schuyler jones model.jpg (6424 bytes)

Cartoon booklet about the collecing box

links to
other sites

where to see stuff