The Evolution of Culture, and Other Essays

by Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers

Plate XXI.

EVOLUTION OF TYPES ON ANCIENT BRITISH COINS.

So also a coin receives upon its surface the image of a king or a god as a stamp of authority. When from any cause the object of the original design is lost, the object of the stamp being no longer to convey a likeness, but being merely used as a test of genuineness, or perhaps amongst an unlettered people to denote its value, the tendency to realistic degeneration would be proportioned to the difficulties of execution; no further labour would be expended on it than was necessary for the object to be attained. Here I must again remind you of the interesting discourse delivered in this Institution on May 14, 1875, by Mr. Evans, on the evolution of British coins.[11] His examples are figured in his Coins of the Ancient Britons, pp. 24-32. With his permission I have introduced some of his diagrams (Plate XXI). You will remember how the coin of Philip of Macedon having been introduced into Britain, the head on the obverse gradually disappeared, leaving only the wreath as a band across the coin, which was ultimately converted into a cross; and how on the reverse, the chariot and two horses dwindled into a single horse, the chariot disappeared, leaving only the wheels, the driver became elevated, not elevated after the manner unfortunately but too common amongst London drivers, but elevated after the manner of the Spiritualists, except that you see he had the precaution to take on a pair of wings, differing also both from the London driver and the Spiritualists, inasmuch as instead of having lost his head he has lost his body, and nothing but the head remains; the body of the horse then gradually disappears, leaving only four lines to denote the legs.

I will now show you an exact parallel to these transformations in a collection of designs, supposed to be tribal marks, which are drawn upon the paddle blades of the New Irelanders, a race of Papuan savages inhabiting an island on the north-east coast of New Guinea.

Having noticed one or two allied varieties of design in specimens that came into my possession, I determined to collect all that I could find as they came to this country. In the course of several years I succeeded in obtaining the series represented upon Plate IV.

Plate IV.

ORNAMENTATION OF NEW IRELAND PADDLES, SHOWING THE TRANSITION OF FORM.

The first figure you will see clearly represents the head of a Papuan: the hair or wig is stuffed out, and the ears elongated by means of an ear ornament, after the manner of these people; the eyes are represented by two black dots, and the red line of the nose spreads over the forehead. This is the most realistic figure of the series. In the second figure the face is somewhat conventionalized: the line of the nose passes in a coil round the eyes; there is a lozenge pattern on the forehead, representing probably a tattoo mark; the body is represented sitting in full. In the third figure the man is represented sitting sideways, simply by lopping off an arm and a leg on one side. In the fourth figure the legs have disappeared. In the fifth figure the whole body has disappeared. In the sixth figure the nose has expanded at the base, and the sides of the face are made to conform to the line of the nose; the elongated ears are there, but the ear ornament is gone: the nose in this figure is becoming the principal feature. In the seventh figure nothing but the nose is left: the sides of the face and mouth are gone; the ears are drawn along the side of the nose; the head is gone, but the lozenge pattern on the forehead still remains; the coil round the eyes has also disappeared, and is replaced by a kind of leaf form, suggested by the upper lobe of the ear in the previous figures; the eyes are brought down into the nose. In the eighth figure the ears are drawn at right angles to the nose. In the ninth figure the nose has expanded at the base; all the rest is the same as in the last figure. In the tenth figure the lozenge pattern and the ears have disappeared, and a vestige of them only remains, in the form of five points; the base of the nose is still further expanded into a half moon. In the last figure, nothing but a half moon remains. No one who compared this figure with the first of the series, without the explanation afforded by the intermediate links, would believe that it represented the nose of a human face. Unfortunately we do not know as yet the exact meaning of these designs, but when further information is obtained about them it will throw considerable light on similar transformations in prehistoric times.