Henry Christy - Travels and Collecting

Travels and Collecting

In 1850 Christy began to visit foreign countries. Among the fruits of his first expedition to the East were an extensive collection of Eastern fabrics, and a large series of figures from Cyprus, which are now in the British Museum.

After the Great Exhibition of 1851, Christy began the study of tribal peoples. In 1852, and again in 1853, he travelled in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. The public collections of antiquities at Stockholm and Copenhagen were a revelation to him, and from this time he collected objects from contemporary and prehistoric periods. The year 1856 was devoted to America. Travelling over Canada, the United States, and British Columbia, Christy met Edward Burnett Tylor in Cuba, and they went on together to Mexico, where Christy made many purchases. Their Mexican travels were described by Tylor in his Anahuac (London, 1861).

In 1858 the antiquity of man was proved by the discoveries of Boucher de Perthes on flint implements in France; Christy joined the Geological Society that year. He went with the French palæontologist Edouard Lartet in the examination of the caves along the valley of the Vézère, a tributary of the Dordogne River, in the south of France. Remains are embedded in the stalagmites of these caves. Thousands of specimens were obtained, some of them being added to Christy's collection. The sites they investigated included Le Moustier, the Abri de la Madeleine, both important type sites.