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#1 |
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Kuala Lumpur
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Hi guys,
Earlier this month I came to know that a person here in Malaysia found a gold pendongkok with rubies 4 feet in the ground using a metal detector. The weight is about 60 grams with 8 large rubies each encircled with another 8 smaller rubies. 2 of the rubies are missing. Usually this type of pendongkok are identified as Makassar/Gowa type. I don't know the exact location where this was found. But I think it was found in Kota Tinggi; southern part of Malaysia on the east coast - I think the owner is from around that area. I should really purchase a metal detector to start a new hobby. ![]() |
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#2 |
EAAF Staff
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Louisville, KY
Posts: 7,200
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He found this? I may move there.........
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#3 |
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Join Date: Jun 2009
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Local variants of this kind of Mendak/Selut are found also in North-Sumatra (Gayo) with Bawar hilts, which resemble early planar Javanese hilts, which possibly also are the source for Nias planar hilts:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ighlight=bawar Last edited by Gustav; 1st May 2016 at 11:05 PM. |
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#4 |
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The one from "Javanese Gold", Hunter Thompson collection. Who knows, if it really is coming from Java. If it is, it could be a hint to the possibility, that the refined aristocratic hilt figures could have been made after a Javanese model, or some of better workmanship even are made in Java.
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#5 |
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And one from Tropenmuseum, found or acquired on Bali (which says not much about the real or possible origin) :
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#6 |
Keris forum moderator
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Nova Scotia
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Gustav, thanks for posting the example from Old Javanese Gold. I was just coming here to do the same.
Just for further clarification, there is a somewhat different description of this ring in the actual book which provides additional information on its possible origins. "This kris hilt fragment comes from the island of Ternate in eastern Indonesia, rather than Java, but it is highly similar to Javanese workmanship, the repoussé on the upper face are especially comparable to to those on Javanese anklets..." Ternate is quite a distance away from Jawa off North Maluku. Last edited by David; 2nd May 2016 at 05:47 AM. Reason: correct spelling |
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#7 |
Vikingsword Staff
Join Date: Nov 2004
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I don't have the book.
Originates from; or was found, David? |
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#8 | |
Keris forum moderator
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#9 |
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Location: Kuala Lumpur
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I've also been contemplating to do that Battara!
![]() I didn't notice that Gayo keris also uses selut Gustav. Very interesting! It seems that this selut/pendongkok were found where ever the Bugis sets foot on. ![]() Anybody know why the rubies in the metal detector selut are oddly and shaped? The shapes are different form each other it looks like naturally formed? |
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#10 | |
Keris forum moderator
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#11 |
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Cool! Thanks David. I always wondered how these stones were processed. Statring to think to DIY these stones for my selut project..
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#12 |
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The red stones in these keris rings might be ruby, true, but they might also be tourmaline, or garnet or spinel, or even something else.
What David has shown us is most certainly one of the forms that ruby rough comes in, but if you are panning river gravel, or the old bed of a river that is no longer there, for ruby or other gemstones, the stones are usually like little water worn pebbles, the image I've posted shows more or less what you can expect them to look like, but they'll often be much smoother than in the pic. In S.E. Asia, and also in India I believe, these little pebbles were individually polished to follow the shape of the stone. They were stuck onto the end of a stick with hard wax to permit the polishing. |
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#13 |
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Thanks Alan, no wonder some of the stones are very small. One guy showed me his talisman of this type of polished stones that looks like the seed of pomegranate. It makes sense that these stones were panned in a river as it is very small.
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#14 |
Keris forum moderator
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Well yes Alan, when rubies find there way into a river be they do become river worn and break down over time. But those river-worn ruby pebbles most certainly began as larger crystals since that is the way rubies form. You can still see the crystal structure in many of the fragments in Alan's photo.The same can be said for tourmaline and garnets. Is is my understanding that red, clear stones are such as garnet and tourmaline are generally referred to as ruby in that area.
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#15 |
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Yes David, that's correct.
They start as a crystal, and over time they become what I posted a pic of. Commercial mining for these gemstones can be carried out in a couple of ways, they can mine for what you posted a pic of, and often that will come as a lump of some sort of rock, with the gemstone crystal attached to it, or they can mine river gravel. Sometimes the river gravels will be many meters below the surface of the ground, and they have to remove the over-burden before they actually get to the gem bearing deposit. Sometimes erosion over thousands of years will remove the over-burden, and you find the gemstones sitting on top of the earth, so its just a matter of the fossicker wandering around and picking up the rough. Sometimes you need to pan for them. I've seen some miners with big vacuum cleaner-like pumps, and they suck the gravel off the bottom of the river and run it down a sluice. There's a lot of ways to mine or fossick for gemstones and for semi-precious stones, but currently here in Australia, I believe all the big operations are doing dry mining and removing over-burden to get at the gravels of long-gone rivers. Semi-precious stones like agates and jasper you can often just pick up off the ground. I live on a lake and frequently go for a walk around the edge of the lake, occasionally I've picked up jasper and agate at the lakes edge. I even found a decent little agate in my backyard a couple of years ago. But to get back to ruby. I've been out of gemstone dealing for more than 30 years now, but even 30 years ago, in fact even 50 years ago, it was very, very difficult to buy good ruby faceting material, my understanding is that these days it has gone from difficult to impossible. So what some dealers are doing is buying up old jewellery and remounting the stone. They particularly want bigger stones, because then they can make one big stone into two smaller ones, and it seems that this gives a higher profit. This recut thing is not unknown in gemological circles. There was a diamond called the Tavernier Blue that first appeared in France in the 17th century. It came from India, and it was sold to the French ruler, after which it was known as the French Blue. In the 1790's it was stolen from the crown jewels and recut into the Hope diamond, so it would not be recognised, the smaller part of the Tavernier was recut and made into a ring for the wife of a Russian Emperor (Paul I?) To get back to rubies. Yes, at the pasar level in Jawa all red stones that can easily be confused with rubies are called "mirah". In Javanese the word 'mirah' means both 'red' and 'ruby'. However, in Indonesian the correct name for ruby is 'mirah delima', or even 'batu delima'. Indonesian dealers in antiques and precious stones tend to take advantage of this potentially confusing situation. The good, reputable jewellers do not work the buyer like this and mostly they refer to ruby as 'ruby', so there is no confusion, but in the pasars anything that's red gets called 'mirah'. I used to sell a lot of chrysoprase to wholesalers in Bali and Central Jawa. This stuff got cut into Chinese looking stones and mostly mounted in Chinese looking gold jewellery. When it hit the marketplace it was called "Hong Kong Jade". True jade it very hard, you will not mark it with a sharp knife. Chrysoprase is very soft and easily scratched, and of course only a fraction the value of jade. |
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