The Other Within, Analysing the English Collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum

Top 10 objects from Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire is the home county of the Pitt Rivers Museum and you would expect that its Engish collections would be dominated by artefacts from that county (and you would be right). There is a total of 5,841 objects, the largest number from a single county.

Class of object	Number of objects	Position	% of total county collection
Tools [definite]	3,609	1	62
Textiles	524	2	9
Tools or weapons	314	3	5
Weapons	304	4	5
Boxes	252	5	4
Lighting	190	6	3
Reproductions	178	7	3
Toys & Games	178	7	3
Pottery	174	8	3
Technique	126	9	2
Music	121	10	2
Fire	119
Writing	109
Pictures	97
Specimens	93
Vessels	93
Animal Gear	89
Religion	87
Insignia	83
Clothing	78
Locks	77
Body Art	71
Ornaments & beads	70
Animalia	61
Medicine	61
Narcotic	53
Food	50
Geology	47
Toilet	40
Agriculture	36
Fishing	33
Dance	26
Figure	25
Ceremonial	23
Currency	22
Transport	22
Basketry	19
Measurement	17
Children	15
Plant	15
Marriage	12
Status	12
Model	12
Punishment & Torture	10
Hunting	8
Physical Anthropology	8
Sport	8
Bag	7
Metallurgy	6
Trade	6
Scientific Apparatus	5
Fan	3
Cordage	2
Navigation	2
Theatre	1
Time	1

There are only 2 classes with no objects from Oxfordshire: Carving, Masks (excluding the classes which are not represented at all in the English collections like headhunting).

Ethnographic and Archaeological split: 62 per cent of the Oxfordshire collections are archaeological, 32 per cent are ethnographic, the remainder are Other.

You are reminded that all artefacts can be classified as more than one type or class, a drinking cup is classified as both a Vessel and Food.

ENGLAND: THE OTHER WITHIN

Analysing the English Collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum

Statistical Analysis

Analysis Sub Navigation