Ostrich Egg Vessel

From South Africa

Collected by Edward John Dunn in 1872
Given to the Museum in 1936
Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University

In South Africa, ostrich eggs have been used as containers for some 15,000 years, primarily for storing and carrying water. A small hole is drilled in the egg, the inside cleaned out, and the shell decorated. When it is filled with water, the hole is plugged with grass or sealed with a limpet shell. This ostrich egg shell has been engraved with figures of an antelope and an ostrich. It was collected in 1872.