Anatole von Hügel (1854–1928)
‘Received from the University Library’
Cambridge, Museum of Archaeology, 7 February 1887

This receipt for objects transferred from the Library to what is now the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology was found in the Lewis cabinet and includes items known to have been part of George Lewis’s original gift, such as ‘Oriental’ seals, chopsticks and ‘a stone image (2 feet high)’—the ‘Indian idol’ lifted up by Maria Edgeworth in 1813, unfortunately no longer identifiable after entering the museum’s collections. The transfer of some ‘Arctic’ and ‘North American’ objects is also recorded. Some of these were acquired by Edward Daniel Clarke’s friend Edward Chappell during the voyage of HMS Rosamond to Hudson’s Bay, including dolls, a harpoon head and a wood and bone spear-thrower. The list is also the only known documentary evidence for the presence of the Polynesian objects in the Library’s collections (‘1 shell amulet, 1 bone and tortoise-shell fish-hook, 1 shell necklance’). How these came to the Library is not known.