National Museum of the American Indian

Second and Third Ecuador Expeditions photograph collection

Summary

Collection ID:
NMAI.AC.001.041
Creators:
Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation
Dates:
1907-1908
Languages:
English
.
Physical Description:
398 Negatives (photographic)
Repository:
Photographic negatives made by George Pepper, Marshall Saville and Foster Saville during the second and third Ecuador expeditions in 1907 and 1908. The expeditions were sponsored by George Gustav Heye and included archaeological work in the Manabi and Esmereldas provinces in Ecuador.

Scope and Contents

Scope and Contents
This collection includes negatives made in the Manabi and Esmereldas provinces of Ecuador during the second and third Ecuador Expeditions sponsored by George Gustav Heye. The photographs were shot by George Hubbard Pepper, Foster H. Saville and Marshall H. Saville. The majority of the photographs are from the Manabi Province and include images from Cerro Jaboncillo, Cerro de Hojas, Manta, La Secita and Monte Christi. The photographs from Esmereldas includes images from Isla de la Tola, La Tolita and Tonsupa. Many of the photographs document the excavation work that was conducted. This includes images of excavation sites and archaeological objects, local workers hired for the expedition as well as landscape views and street scenes in the various expedition locations in Ecuador. Additionally, many of Foster Savilles's photographs in Monte Christi and Manta show local happenings such as the procession of Fiesta de San Pablo, fishermen drawing nets and women bathing on the beach. There are several photographs that feature George Pepper and Marshall Saville in the field. The negatives were likely shot on both glass plate and nitrate. There are 75 glass plate negatives, made by George Pepper, that are still in the collection. The remainder of the negatives which were likely shot on nitrate are now on acetate film, copied during the 1960s photograph conservation project at the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation.
Scope and Contents
This collection includes negatives with the following catalog numbers: N00001-N00074, N00170-N00171, N00178, N00221, N00798-N01112, N01453-N01457
N00170 - N00171 ; N00178 ; N00221 are the only photographs from the Third Ecuador Expedition, the rest are from the Second.

Arrangement

Arrangement
Arranged by catalog number.

Biographical / Historical

Biographical / Historical
The Second and Third Ecuador expeditions were sponsored by George Gustav Heye and conducted during the summers of 1907 and 1908. These followed an initial archaeological investigation on the coast of Ecuador in 1906, later called the First Ecuador Expedition. Marshall H. Saville, George Hubbard Pepper and Foster H. Saville arrived in Manabi, Ecuador in the middle of June, 1907 and the expedition remained there until October. The work centered mainly around the Cerro Jaboncillo and Cerro de Hojas hills where excavations of house-sites and mounds were conducted. Following this work in Manabi, George Pepper and Foster Saville traveled to the hills south of Mone Cristi and Marshall Saville proceeded to the Esmeraldas coast with Louis W. Niendorff conducting excavations through the first of November. In 1908 Marshall Saville returned to Ecuador with George D. Hedian, revisiting sites in Manabi and making several trips into the mountainous region south of Manta as well as Bahia de Caraques. Over the course of these two trips more than 3000 archaeological items were collected and brought back to New York as part of the Heye collection, eventually becoming part of the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. For more information see "The Antiquities of Manabi, Ecuador; Final Report" by Marshall H. Saville in Contributions to South American Archaeology, Volume 2, 1910.

Administration

Author
Rachel Menyuk
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Sent to the Heye Museum, later the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, by George Pepper, Marshall Savillle and Foster Saville, along with other excavation materials in 1907 and 1908.
Processing Information
This collection is still in need of processing. Collection record written by Rachel Menyuk, Processing Archivist, in 2019.

Using the Collection

Conditions Governing Access
Access to NMAI Archive Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Thursday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu). Photographs with burials, human remains or any other cultural sensitivity are restricted.
Conditions Governing Use
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited users to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not changed, the Smithsonian Institution copyright notice (where applicable) is included, and the source of the image is identified as the National Museum of the American Indian.
Preferred Citation
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Second and Third Ecuador Expeditions photograph collection, Item Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.

Related Materials
A small amount of field notes from George Pepper can be found in the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation records, NMAI.AC.001, (Box 189, Folder 3). Additional Pepper field notes can be found in his collection at Tulane University.

Keywords

Keywords table of terms and types.
Keyword Terms Keyword Types
ManabĂ­ (Ecuador) Geographic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Ecuador Geographic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Excavations (Archaeology) -- Ecuador Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Pepper, George H. (George Hubbard), 1873-1924 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Saville, Marshall H. (Marshall Howard), 1867-1935 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Saville, Foster H. (Foster Harmon), 1874-1942 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid

National Museum of the American Indian
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