South Africa's golden rhino may make overseas debut
Prospect of golden rhinoceros of Mapungubwe, potent symbol of precolonial civilisation, going on show in Britain hasn't been universally welcomed
The golden rhinoceros of Mapungubwe, the defining symbol of precolonial civilisation in South Africa, could leave the country for the first time next year on loan to the British Museum for an unprecedented exhibition of South African art.
It has been described as southern Africa's equivalent of Tutankhamen's mask or the Staffordshire Hoard, but the small foil figure could also become a political football as the South African government weighs the request in what some fear will be a decision motivated by anti-Western grandstanding. It rejected a proposal for the rhino to be displayed in Paris in 2001.
Mapungubwe, in the far north of South Africa bordering present-day Botswana and Zimbabwe, was the biggest kingdom on the subcontinent by the 13th century. It had a sophisticated state and economic system that included agriculture, mining and advanced artisanship, and traded gold and ivory with Asia and Egypt. The site was rediscovered in 1933 and excavated by the University of Pretoria, yielding a vast quantity of gold jewellery including anklets, bracelets, necklaces, beads and animal figurines recovered from three elite burials.
Such is Mapungubwe’s importance in the post-apartheid national narrative that South Africa’s highest honour is the Order of Mapungubwe, of which Nelson Mandela was the first recipient
But for decades it was largely ignored in South Africa because it contradicted the racist ideology of apartheid, which taught that history began when the first Dutch settler arrived in Cape Town in 1652. Few were willing to contemplate that the rhino, made of several pieces of thin gold foil originally nailed on to a wooden carving, could be the work of a much earlier black culture.
"A civilisation like this existed nearly a thousand years ago," says Theo van Wyk, head of the arts department at the University of Pretoria. "The conventional view is that it was dark Africa, but it was a trading point for many."
Since the coming of multiracial democracy, Mapungubwe has been declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco and incorporated into a national park. A museum on the university campus holds 9kg of gold treasures found at the site - the biggest archaeological collection of gold artefacts in sub-Saharan Africa - of which 3.5kg, including the rhino, are on display.
Sian Tiley-Nel, museum manager and chief curator of the Mapungubwe collection, says: "You can compare it with the great Staffordshire Hoard. It's not as ornate as your Anglo-Saxon gold, but it's just as impressive and just as beautiful. But for centuries, these artefacts were neglected."
