Credit: © The Royal Society
Image number: RS.10907
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Picture-writing of a dolphin and the feet of tapir
Date
1853-1854
Creator
Richard Spruce (1817 - 1893, British) , Explorer
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Dimensions
height (drawing): 220mm
width (drawing): 133mm
width (drawing): 133mm
Subject
Geography
> Exploration
Art & culture
> Archaeology
Politics & Government
> Political doctrines
> British Empire
Politics & Government
> Political doctrines
> British colonialism
> Exploration
Art & culture
> Archaeology
Politics & Government
> Political doctrines
> British Empire
Politics & Government
> Political doctrines
> British colonialism
Content object
Description
Three picture-writing figures or pictograms carved into rock at Juarité Caxoeira, Rio Uaupés.
Reproduced as Figure 22 in Notes of a botanist on the Amazon & Andes: being records of travel on the Amazon and its tributaries, the Trombetas, Rio Negro, Uaupés, Casiquiari, Pacimoni, Huallaga, and Pastasa; as also to the cataracts of the Orinoco, along the eastern side of the Andes of Peru and Ecuador, and the shores of the Pacific, during the years 1849-1864 edited by Alfred Russel Wallace, volume II (London, 1908).
The large left hand figure is annotated by Spruce as 'buta', or dolphin.
The two small figures at top right are annotated as 'Pé de Anta' or Tapir's foot. In the aforementioned work Spruce notes that such impressions, which look as if some three-toed foot has trod on the rock whilst still soft, are found on the rocks of the Uaupés, in a scattered rather than consecutive manner.
The right hand figure of a human form is annotated buy Spruce thus, 'This figure somewhat modern - beneath it are remains of a more ancient one, too indistinct to be copied'.
Richard Spruce (1817-1893) British botanist was not a Fellow of the Royal Society. He spent some fifteen years studying and collecting in the Amazon of Brazil and the Andes of Peru and Ecuador between 1849 and 1864.
Spruce was already in South America when he was employed by a Kew Gardens-India Office project to secure seeds of the cinchona tree, whose bark yielded the antimalarial drug quinine. In 1860 he shipped around 100,000 dried seeds and over 600 young plants out of Ecuador. A year later, Ecuador adopted laws to protect its cinchona trees from mass exportation.
Reproduced as Figure 22 in Notes of a botanist on the Amazon & Andes: being records of travel on the Amazon and its tributaries, the Trombetas, Rio Negro, Uaupés, Casiquiari, Pacimoni, Huallaga, and Pastasa; as also to the cataracts of the Orinoco, along the eastern side of the Andes of Peru and Ecuador, and the shores of the Pacific, during the years 1849-1864 edited by Alfred Russel Wallace, volume II (London, 1908).
The large left hand figure is annotated by Spruce as 'buta', or dolphin.
The two small figures at top right are annotated as 'Pé de Anta' or Tapir's foot. In the aforementioned work Spruce notes that such impressions, which look as if some three-toed foot has trod on the rock whilst still soft, are found on the rocks of the Uaupés, in a scattered rather than consecutive manner.
The right hand figure of a human form is annotated buy Spruce thus, 'This figure somewhat modern - beneath it are remains of a more ancient one, too indistinct to be copied'.
Richard Spruce (1817-1893) British botanist was not a Fellow of the Royal Society. He spent some fifteen years studying and collecting in the Amazon of Brazil and the Andes of Peru and Ecuador between 1849 and 1864.
Spruce was already in South America when he was employed by a Kew Gardens-India Office project to secure seeds of the cinchona tree, whose bark yielded the antimalarial drug quinine. In 1860 he shipped around 100,000 dried seeds and over 600 young plants out of Ecuador. A year later, Ecuador adopted laws to protect its cinchona trees from mass exportation.
Associated place