Australian bark shield
- Audio guide stop: 131
- Gallery: Room 1
- Made in: New South Wales
- Date: 1771 (or earlier)
- Object type: shield
- Materials: wood (Rhizophora stylosa (red mangrove)); bark
- Museum number: Oc1978,Q.839
- Museum: The British Museum
- Collection record: British Museum website
- Image © The Trustees of the British Museum, shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
Listen to the free audio guide
About this object
Before you is a shield made of bark and wood, created by an Aboriginal Australian from New South Wales. Its elongated oval shape features pointed ends and a slightly convex surface. The rough bark shows a darkened appearance with faint traces of white kaolin clay on the outer side.
A thin handle is attached vertically to the back, and the shield has a pierced hole near the center with ragged edges. Another small hole appears near one end. Scientific analysis shows both shield and handle are made from red mangrove wood.
This shield was once thought to have been collected by Captain James Cook during his first voyage in the Pacific in 1770. While recent scholarship questions that connection, it remains an important artifact linked to early European encounters in Australia.
See it in person
Australian bark shield is on display in Room 1 at the British Museum on Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London — free to enter. Choose British Museum on audioguide.london and type its audio guide stop number, 131, from the gallery label, or take a photo of it, to hear this free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
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