Door lintel
- Audio guide stop: 164
- Gallery: Room 24
- Culture: Hawke's Bay
- Made in: Hawke's Bay (opinion of Roger Neich)
- Date: 1860s (opinion of Roger Neich)
- Object type: lintel
- Materials: wood; haliotis shell
- Museum number: Oc1927,1119.2
- 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
This is a carved door lintel from the Hawke's Bay region of New Zealand, created around the 1860s. At the center is an unsexed figure with a double-tongue shape and hands on its hips. On either side are smaller “manaia” figures—stylized guardian forms with bird or reptilian features. A large manaia head appears at each end of the lintel’s base. Shell eyes, notches made from haliotis shell, stand out against the carved surface patterned with spirals and traditional Māori designs like rauponga, whakarare, and taratara-a-kai. Made of wood and inlaid with shell, it reflects a deep connection to Māori carving traditions. In a wharenui (meeting house), such a lintel would mark the threshold between the everyday world and sacred space. This piece was collected by Captain J.P. Luce aboard the HMS Esk and donated by his daughter in 1867.
See it in person
Door lintel is on display in Room 24 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, 164, 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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