Quote:
Originally Posted by David
Oxford University recently conducted a study with the company Himalayan Bowls and found that singing bowls have been made in the Himalayan region for at least 600-800 years, and are likely related to bronze bowls produced in Central and Western Asia. Extensive metallurgical analysis by Himalayan Bowls and Oxford University has discovered that the bowls are made from "high tin bronze," also known as "bell metal bronze," which is a pure mixture of copper and tin. Contrary to popular folklore, there is no evidence to support the claims that singing bowls contain "7 metals" (Joseph Feinstein, 2011).
This seems to dispute even the idea of 5-metal bowls. As for your pendok, it may indeed be suasa if it has a gold look and does not tarnish. Again, not 5 metals, but 3. I have never hear of any 5-metal mixtures being used on pendoks, but maybe someone else has more info.
The photo of the statue is fairly useless in this conversation since the true color of the mixed metals here are unknown. Color shifts dependent upon light in which it is shot and white balance used. Also colors shift from one computer screen to another. Telling us that your pendok looks like the metal in this statue does not bring us any closer to determining the materials that your pendok have been made of. It probably looks different on my screen than on yours. You would have to have it tested to know
anything definite.
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David the analysis I seen was done by the British Museum in London and the analysis was of old antique Tibetan bowls.
All of the modern bowls are just made of bronze despite what the seller says. The people in the village where they make the majority of modern bowls are very poor, they don’t have piles of gold and silver lying around from which to make bowls.
Basically either the people who sell them are deceived into thinking they are made of seven metals or they know they are not but sell them as such despite this.
A metallurgical analysis, done by the British Museum in London, reveals that the instruments are made of a 12-metal alloy consisting of silver, nickel, copper, zinc, antimony, tin, lead, cobalt, bismuth, arsenic, cadmium and iron. Now a lost art, it appears that this quality of bell bowl cannot be reproduced today.