Cowrie Collection

Gnawa musicians - ethnic group inhabiting Morocco and Algeria in the Maghreb. Gnawa music is characterized by instrumentation

Measled cowrie, Macrocypraea zebra (Zebra cowry, Cypraea zebra). Illustration drawn and engraved by Richard Polydore Nodder

Tiger cowrie, wrinkled cowrie, money cowrie, etc
Tiger cowrie, Cypraea tigris 1, wrinkled cowrie, Nucleolaria nucleus 2, money cowrie, Monetaria moneta 3, and Ellatrivia merces 4, Porcelaines

W B Cownie, Scotland International Rugby player. 1890s

African Woman with huge lip plates from Sarh (formerly Fort Archambault) - the third largest city in Chad, Africa. In Africa

East African Woman - Braided Hair, shell necklace
East African Woman with Braided Hair, shell necklace and extensive additional face and neck jewellery. Date: circa 1930s

Burkina Faso - Upper Volta, Africa - Samo Dancer
Southern Burkina Faso - Upper Volta, Africa - Dancer of the Samo people. He appears to be playing some form of bowed musical instrument? Date: circa 1910s

Sudanese Woman with Cowry Shell decoration
Sudanese Woman, wearing a fantastic decorated nosering, headdress made out of small white cowrie (cowry) shells and topped with large feathers. Her dress is also edged with small shells and beads

Sudanese Woman in traditional Costume seemingly emerging from a small localised Nile River mist (!) with the pyramids lightly visible in the rear

Decorative arrangement of colorful shells including cowrie, mitra, Peruvian olive and terebellum.. Handcolored engraving from Charles d Orbignys Dictionnaire Universel d Histoire Naturelle

Sudanese old man with a very toothy grin
Sudanese jolly old man bedecked with colourful textiles and strings of small shells with a very toothy grin (or lack thereof!). Date: circa 1910s

Cypraea argus, hundred-eyed cowrie
A pair of hundred-eyed cowries (Cypraea argus). A marine gastropod found across the Indo-Pacific. The name hundred-eyed refers to the particular type of shell pattern

Acacia sp. babul tree
Watercolour by Olivia Fanny Tonge (1858-1949). From one of sixteen sketchbooks presented to the Natural History Museum in 1952

Tophane and the Bosphorus, Istanbul
A panoramic view of Tophane and the Bosphorus, set within the frame of a large shell

Pacific Currency
Money-cowries of Pacific Islanders

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