Photographs (left to right): All Adirondacks, New York

Wampum Belts No Known Provenience Archive

 

Pitt Rivers Three Diamond Belt

Courtesy Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK

 

Original Size:	Wampum on hemp
Reproduction:
Beads:
Materials:

Description:

The wampum belt shown in the attached image is perhaps among the oldest ethnographic belts known.  It is in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, and attributed to the Tradescant Collection; Tradescant Senior died in 1638 and his collection was inherited by his son.  In 1659 the collection was acquired by Isaac Ashmole, who presented it to Oxford University where the collection forms the core of the three centuries plus old museum named after Ashmole.

There is no surviving documentation.  It was in the John Tradescant Sr. collection by 1638.  He was the king's gardener and received botanical specimens from "Virginia," which at that time extended from southern  New England to Florida; [the belt is] probably from Virginia Colony north (Hamell, G.R., 2012).

Reference:

Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, UK

http://www.bridgemanart.com/asset/104937/American-School-17th-century/Wampum-Belt-American-Iroquoian-or-Algonquian-trib?search_context=%7B%22url%22%3A%22%5C%2Fsearch%5C%2Fartist%5C%2FAmerican-School-17th-century%5C%2F14603%22%2C%22num_results%22%3A%2255%22%2C%22search_type%22%3A%22creator_assets%22%2C%22creator_id%22%3A%2214603%22%2C%22item_index%22%3A4%7D

Hamell, G. R. 2012. Personal communications.