3D scanning

Zabala, southern Iraq, ca 2200 BCE This diminutive clay tablet was written by a Sumerian scribe in an administrative office around 2200 BC. The full translation of the laconic text runs as follows: 18 jars of pig fat – Balli 4 jars of pig fat – Nimgir-ab-lah. Fat dispensed (at ?) the city of Zabala. Ab-kid-kid, the scribe. 4th year 10th month.

MS Doc. 829 Sumerian clay tablet

This pocket terrestrial globe is just seven centimetres in diameter and has a protective case covered with sharkskin and lined with a celestial chart. Pocket globes were first produced in England by Joseph Moxon (1627–1691), and they remained in vogue as a gentleman’s toy well into the nineteenth century. Commonly—as here—they showed the latest terrestrial and celestial discoveries. This globe shows the track of Lieutenant James Cook’s First Voyage from 1768 to 1771 in the Endeavour and the depiction of New Zealand reflects the discoveries Cook made. It was presented to the Royal Colonial Institute (now the Royal Commonwealth Society) in 1953 by Olive M. Thompson.

This protective case for a pocket terrestrial globe is covered with sharkskin and lined with a celestial chart. Pocket globes were first produced in England by Joseph Moxon (1627–1691), and they remained in vogue as a gentleman’s toy well into the nineteenth century. Commonly—as here—they showed the latest terrestrial and celestial discoveries. It was presented to the Royal Colonial Institute (now the Royal Commonwealth Society) in 1953 by Olive M. Thompson.

Tobacco stopper

In the 1750s the Reverend Francis Gastrell cut down the mulberry tree supposedly planted by Shakespeare at New Place, Stratford-upon- Avon, having grown tired of tourists asking to see it. The second half of the eighteenth century saw a brisk trade in souvenir objects claimed to be made of wood from Shakespeare’s tree. Tobacco stoppers such as this were common and were used for pressing down tobacco in a pipe. It is one of many objects later added to the cabinet of ‘Oriental’ manuscripts and curiosities presented by George Lewis in 1727. Its provenance is unknown. In 1817 the Library was given a piece of mulberry wood from Shakespeare’s tree, but this was a different item and was later donated to the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre museum in Stratford.

A plaster cast of the left hand

A plaster cast of the left hand of the celebrated ‘physical’ medium Daniel Dunglas Home (1833–1886), who was apparently able to levitate, contact the dead and produce rapping and knocks at will.

Asante gold weights

Gold dust functioned as a universal medium of exchange in West Africa, measured on scales according to a standardised system of weights. The weights and boxes for storing gold dust were decorated with geometric and figurative designs. Figurative designs featured animate and inanimate objects such as animals, fish, insects and birds, and musical instruments, tools, weapons and status objects. Human figures were also sculpted, such as the drummer shown here, part of a set of brass gold weights, balance scale, scoop and boxes. The significance of gold weights as an art form transcends their economic function, sometimes alluding to proverbs and folktales and reflecting wider Asante spiritual beliefs and cultural practices. This set was purchased from a Hausa trader by D. M. Lawson while he worked as a telegraph engineer in the Gold Coast between 1926 and 1932, and later donated to the Royal Commonwealth Society.