CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Signal horn | Nambrose
1850
About the object
The transverse horn is made from the tusk of an elephant. It is decorated with black dots at the top and an opening through which it can be blown. It was used to sound a signal.
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The transverse horn made of ivory and has a sublimely crafted opening for blowing on the concave side. The tip is contoured and decorated with black dots. It was used for court music, to sound signals and was also a symbol of rank. The Rosset collection originated before the Mahdiyya (1881-1899), the uprising against Turco-Egyptian colonial rule on the Middle Nile, which changed the region politically and socially. From 1869 to 1878, Carl Friedrich Rosset worked as a merchant and diplomat in Egypt (Cairo) and Sudan (Khartoum, El Fasher). His brother Carl Wilhelm Rosset, a merchant and explorer, lived in Sudan from 1873-76; among other places, he navigated the White Nile and ventured into the tropical region at least as far as the Sudd, a swamp and vast wetland area in South Sudan. Both brothers also navigated the Blue Nile in search of timber for shipbuilding. Author: Eva Gerhards, Translation: Timothy Connell