Heywood Walter Seton-Karr: explorer and collector

Arrowhead from Fayum (Faiyum or Fayoom), Egypt.

H.W. Seton-Karr was born in 1859 in Bombay, India.  He went to Eton College, Oxford University and then Sandhurst Military College.  After his military training, he became a lieutenant in the Berkshire regiment in 1882 and had a short military career, leaving the army in 1884.  His (albeit) short career in the army meant that he travelled the world, including Egypt.

During his time stationed in Egypt he discovered ancient flint mines (Wadi el-Sheikh), collecting flint implements from a variety of time periods (these objects are now in the World Museum, Liverpool).

Flint debitage from Somaliland: Hull and East Riding Museum

His interest in archaeology didn’t stop there.  On another trip to Africa, he went game hunting in Somaliland where he found some Palaeolithic stone tools.  These tools were very similar to early stone tools found in France and Britain.  Seton-Karr discussed his finds with the archaeologist John Evans, and compared them to objects in Evans’ collection.  Through these discussions came the realisation that these tools were made by the same kind of beings (thought to be our hominid ancestors, Homo erectus).  These finds created a foundation for a later theory that the origins of humanity lie in Africa, and that hominids dispersed from Africa across the world.

The stone tools he collected on his trips to Somaliland ended up in museums across Britain, including Bury Art Gallery, Museum and Archives and the British Museum.  We have some in our collections in Hull Museums (and of these, several came via other museums such as Kendal Museum and Morley Museum, Leeds).

It’s amazing to think these palaeolithic stone tools were held by hominids, and that in Hull we have objects that connect us to the origin of our species.