Pole Club with Cylindrical Basalt Disc Head, Papua New Guinea

Item A67 

This Item was Sold on 17 October 2022 for $403


Similar artifacts for sale are often found on the South American Artifacts web page.

Historical Pricing information for this item and similar artifacts can be found at: Historical Artifact Prices.



The price of this item will be reduced each week until it is sold. The current price is listed on the Oceanic Artifacts link. Instructions for ordering can be found on the How to Order web page.


This item is a very old pole club made by the Masin tribe of Papua, New Guinea in the 19th Century. It is from an old collection and it was collected in Collingwood Bay in Oro Province. I had it authenticated at the University of Michigan by an Anthropology professor who spent a lot of time in New Guinea. This pole club has a cylindrical disk head made out of Basalt. It is attached by inserting the pole through the hole at the center of the disk and then the end of the shaft is split and a wedge is inserted in the split to hold the disk in place. The end of the shaft is then bound with tightly braided plant fibre and a cluster of bird-of-paradise feathers is added at the end of the pole. Very clever technology and an incredible old artifact. This is what was used in New Guinea before large quantities of airport art flooded the antique market. The Basalt cylinder has multiple chips in the edge as expected and the feathers o longer hold their bright colors, but this is among the best that you will find in or out of museum collections.

Span = 102 cm ; Weight = 702 gm


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