| Original Message: Jatim bird beads |
|---|
|
Hi Danny, I agree with Flor. It doesn't look like an ancient Jatim bead to me; more like some of the repros that were being made ten or twelve years ago. My main reason for saying this is that the perforation and the area around it are unlike any genuine Jatim I've come across, and unlike most of the more recent fakes. Also, the construction of the cane and the colour seem wrong. If you get a chance to look at pages 100 and 101 in Jamey Allen's Magical Ancient Beads, or page 73 in Manik Manik di Indonesia by Adhyatman and Arifin (still a very useful book), you'll see the difference, I'm sure. I'll attach too a photo of the most famous Jatim bead of all: Korean National Treasure #634, which was found in a royal grave in Korea that can be dated to the late 5th-early 6th centuries. With its face and bird canes, it shows how developed bead making was in Java in that early period. There's a fine, elegant essay about this bead by James Lankton in the proceedings of the 2007 International Bead Conference in Istanbul. Cheers, Will All rights reserved by Bead Collector Network and its users |
|
|