ancient gold and modern fakes in southeast asia

183

A. T. N. Bennett

The color of gold and its unchanging durability have afforded thiswidely dispersed yet rare metal an unchallenged status in the materialworld. Wherever it has been found, it has attracted and motivated mansince antiquity and, having both ritual and amuletic significance, it hasbeen extensively used for personal adornment. The artifacts examined inthis essay have been placed in rich burials to honor the dead or deliberatelyconcealed in hoards for safekeeping in times of danger and never subse-quently recovered by their owners.1 They have been deposited as offeringsto the gods under temple floors or under the coping in the upper levels ofthe towers of religious sanctuaries. They may also have been recovered following accidental loss, which in the case of shipwrecks has meant inenormous quantities. In Southeast Asia ancient gold has often been discov-ered by farmers plowing, by people working in the fields, or during construction works accompanying the urbanization of the rural landscape.

Increasingly gold is being actively sought, and in areas where metal detectors are widely available local treasure hunters are assiduous and oftensuccessful. These activities may be on a small scale with individual familiesdigging with hand tools. However, they can involve organized gangs thatemploy local labor and pay for the gold recovered.2 They can also operateon a very grand scale using digging machinery and involving large amountsof money and bribery at the upper levels of local government and the mili-tary. The result of these activities is that much of the gold retrieved fromarchae ological sites has not been adequately recorded and its historical

6Ancient Gold and Modern Fakes

in Southeast Asia

context has been lost.3 It has been melted down for its metal value,4 or insome cases entered into a hierarchical system involving numerous trans -actions to emerge on the international art market. It is not the subject ofthis essay to discuss the issues resulting from the loss of information causedby the willful destruction of archaeological sites, and some archaeologistsprefer to ignore all objects that do not derive from officially documentedexcavations.5Unfortunately, in the case of Southeast Asian gold, the corpusof material for study would be sparse indeed when one considers that themajority of gold objects in both museums and private collections lackprovenance.

This lack of provenance inevitably leads us to the problem of fakes,6 andancient gold artifacts are among the most ubiquitous categories of objectsto be faked, reassembled, or overrestored.7 A new scientific technique,which appears to have great potential for identifying modern fakes, is thedating of helium gas trapped within the gold at the time of melting. Thistechnique is still being developed and the results are as yet inconsistent, butthe theory is sound, and the technique will hopefully become more reliablewith time.8 A full understanding of the stylistic variations and subtleties atany given time in history together with the objective identification of thematerials and techniques of manufacture must suffice to successfully identifymodern copies of ancient artifacts.

Gold Ores, Extraction, and Provenance Studies

An article in The New Scientist titled “Gold Fingerprint to Foil Forgers”claimed that the fingerprint of impurities found in gold would provide theinformation as to where the gold was mined and would act as the latestweapon against forgers.9 It is theoretically possible to distinguish amongmined, alluvial, and modern refined gold based on the gold’s mineral com-position. Gold from a primary source will contain no platinum group inclusions, and the presence of various trace elements, including iron, tin,and the platinoids, may help to identify particular gold sources.10However,this is far from straightforward, and it has been well documented in themineralogical literature that there is a large amount of geochemical variationin the ores present, even in small primary gold deposits.

Most metallic gold in today’s world is retrieved by the deep mining ofprimary hard rock deposits.11 These sources would have been largely

184 A. T. N. Bennett

inaccessible in prehistoric or early historic times, when the ease with whichthe gold could be exploited would have been more important than the sizeof the source. Many of the secondary deposits, which are considered tocontain too little gold to be worked commercially today, would have beenquite successfully panned in the past. Once we acknowledge that a largeamount of the gold extracted in prehistory and historical times was fromthese secondary placer deposits, the difficulties in finding a single regionalchemical gold signature are further exacerbated. Secondary river gravel deposits are formed by the mechanical concentration of gold and otherminerals that have been washed into river gravels from primary lode-bearing rocks. Placer deposits are often made up of gold from a variety ofsources, some of which will already have undergone a significant amount ofweathering and alteration.12 In addition, the composition of gold from thesurface of a placer deposit will differ from that mined at its base, so the goldartifacts produced will be assumed to come from different sources.

In reality the sourcing of any metal is inherently difficult and can onlybe as good as the ore sample on which it is based, which in turn requires afull understanding of the geology in question. Most of the gold in the pre-historic and early historic periods would undoubtedly have been extractedby panning alluvial sediments, a technique requiring little capital investmentin equipment and no specialist technology. Unfortunately this techniqueleaves no discernible archaeological signature.13

The analysis of two gold earrings from the late Iron Age cemetery site ofPhum Snay in northwestern Cambodia showed that they had a compositionof 70 percent gold and 30 percent silver and were possibly manufacturedfrom an alluvial electrum.14 The gold content of a looted bead from theproto-historic site of Go Mun in southern Vietnam was 94 percent goldwith 5 percent silver, suggesting that it was a natural placer gold.15 Giventhat copper, gold, and silver melt together to form a complete solid solutionseries with the entire range of possible alloy compositions, it is not surprisingthat the gold alloys used in Southeast Asia show considerable variability.Alluvial and mined gold from primary veins will invariably contain 5 to 40percent silver and 0.1 to 1.5 percent copper by weight as the major impurities.It can be used as found, purified to remove the naturally occurring silverand copper, or debased by adding silver and copper for fraudulent purposesor in times of economic difficulty. Gold is predominantly recycled andtraded rather than thrown away, thus creating impurity patterns that are far

Ancient Gold and Modern Fakes in Southeast Asia 185

from clear. The chances of successfully matching an object to its source decreases exponentially with the degree of processing and recycling the object has undergone during its manufacture. Provenance studies of theearly material therefore have a greater chance of success than those of thelater gold, which will usually have been in circulation for considerablylonger. Notwithstanding these difficulties, scientific studies have character-ized some ore sources. Gold panned from the Sarawak rivers in Borneo hasbeen found to contain traces of antimony with platinum and arsenic, sug-gesting that in the twelfth century western Borneo was producing gold andtransporting it to the Malay Peninsula.16Gold from Sulawesi is characterizedby the presence of nickel as the only impurity. Gold from Sumatra has beenfound to contain tin, lead, and mercury,17 and provenance studies on thegold finds from Kota Cina in northeastern Sumatra have attempted tolocate the source of the gold by examining the composition of finished goldsheet.18

Gold Composition and Purification

There is evidence that early explorers were aware of the differences in goldcomposition. An eleventh-century Indian text refers to gold coming fromSurvarnadvipa as being of different types: yellow gold color and white shellcolor. The latter presumably refers to the amounts of silver or copper contained in the alloy. An eleventh-century Sanskrit inscription of theCham king Rudravarman III at the Po-Nagar temple mentions a donationby the king of seven panas of red-colored gold (rakta kaladhautam) andtwenty-three kattikas and two panas of superior white gold (sitatara kaladhautam).19

It is unclear when the techniques of gold purification were developed inSoutheast Asia. Once gold was used as a measure of wealth, it would havebecome essential to standardize weight and control composition by addingor removing other metals. The earliest reference to the use of cementationto remove silver from gold is contained in an Indian text known as the Kautiliya Arthasastra, believed to have been written by the chief minister ofthe Mauryean emperor Chandragupta, who ruled northern India in thefourth century BCE.20 Gold dust or thin hammered sheets were placed inacidic salts, which attacked the silver and formed a silver chloride vapor,leaving a purified gold metal.


Ornamental gold of the best kind, possessed of excellent color, passedthrough an equal amount of lead, turned into leaves by heating made brightwith Indus-earth, becomes the base of blue, yellow, white, green and parrot-feather colors.21

In general, the composition of the gold jewelry and artifacts has been foundto be much more random in societies that did not use a gold monetary system — varying from 45 to 99 percent gold — than in cultures that refinedtheir gold for coinage. It would be interesting to investigate whether thecomposition of the gold in the Khmer empire, which stretched from Cambodia west to the Burmese border and had no coinage systems, ismore varied and random in composition than that of other parts of South-east Asia where Pyu coins (also known as Funan and Dvaravati coins) werewidely circulated until the tenth century, or in Java, where a gold and silvercurrency was in place from the tenth to the early fourteenth century. Theavailable elemental analysis indicates that the Khmer favored the use ofhigh-melting-point, purer gold over that of a gold alloyed with copper. Thischoice may reflect the limited number of analyses undertaken, or it maysuggest a central control of this precious metal. By the time of JayavarmanV, there are references to the use of gold for fines or in settling disputes.22Khmer gold may have had a fixed monetary value even though it was notused for currency,23 in much the same way as the Romans controlled thepurity of silver throughout their empire.

Goldsmiths were rarely if ever able to acquire sufficient capital tocontrol their own stocks of metal. They typically obtained their gold fromthe wealthy individual or institution commissioning the desired article.Their sources of raw material would have included recycled, damaged, orno longer sought-after goods, which may themselves have contained othermetals such as copper. It is unclear to what extent the goldsmiths undertookthe relatively straightforward process of cupellation, which involved theaddition of lead to a crucible of molten gold, which was then oxidized usinga blast of cold air.24 Touchstones were certainly part of the goldsmiths’ toolset, and examples have been found at Kota Cina in northeastern Sumatraand at Khuan Lukpat, Krabbi province in peninsular Thailand.25 The latterdates to the third century CE and has a Tamil inscription (reading “Perumpadan Kal”) identifying it as the property of a person named Perumpadan.26 An Old Javanese text compares the methods used to testthe quality of human beings to those used to test the purity of gold, and an


eleventh-century inscription provides details of the four ways to test gold:using a touchstone, hammering, cutting, or melting.27

Some goldsmiths would have had particular technical requirements oftheir metal, causing them to seek gold of a particular purity. Gold that isvery pure is also very soft and would have been chosen for the manufactureof the thin hammered gold such as that often used for foundation deposits.28Gold jasmine flower garlands made of cut and bent hammered gold stripssoldered into cross-shaped links were found to have been made of goldwith 98 percent purity, 1 to 2 percent silver, and 0.2 to 0.3 percent copper.29Other objects that were likely to receive more wear were alloyed with agreater percentage of silver and copper in order to harden them, thus producing the desired mechanical and physical properties required fortheir purpose. The analysis of a seven-gram gold ingot from Oc-Eo, theprotohistoric site in the trans-Bassac region of the Mekong Delta in southernVietnam, was found to contain 19 percent silver and 5 percent copper,30suggesting that intentional alloying took place prior to manufacture andraising the possibility that the gold was traded as an intentional alloy.31

Most of the provenanced gold from Southeast Asia comes from Funansites such as Oc-Eo. Chinese emissaries in the Tsin dynasty (265–419 CE)refer to the Funan kingdom as having expanded its sphere of influence toencompass parts of the Malay Peninsula and as having a tax on gold, suggesting that gold was readily available if not locally produced. Oc-Eowas one of the earliest commercial centers in Southeast Asia engaged in themaritime trade with China of a wide range of specialist and luxury goodssuch as horses and elephants from India. It is also the earliest excavated siteto have produced evidence of a gold workshop.32 Hammers, awls, bivalvecasting molds, droplets of gold, fragments of copper, gold sheet, andpartially finished repoussé gold plaques and significant amounts of goldjewelry, including rings, linked chains, inscribed gold sheets, gold plaqueswith repoussé images of Hindu deities, and more than nine hundred goldbeads of various shapes, were recovered by Mallaret in 1944.33

For Southeast Asia there is as yet little analytical data concerning thechemical characterization of the alloys used. Riederer analyzed objectsfrom the Thompson Collection of Javanese gold, now in the Yale UniversityArt Gallery. The material is not from a secure provenance, and the analysesvaried considerably, but he suggested that the earlier items in the collectioncontained a higher ratio of silver to gold.34 The recent excavations at the


protohistoric cemetery of Prohear, about sixty-five kilometers east of PhnomPenh and forty west of the Vietnamese border and dating between the second century BCE and first century CE, have provided a significant corpusof early gold material for analysis.35 Thirty fragments out of the seventynine gold and/or silver objects excavated from fifty-two burials have beenanalyzed using Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spec-trometry (LA-ICP-MS).36 The data indicate that slightly less than half theobjects, which were mostly small wire spiral rings, contained more silverthan gold, suggesting that the inhabitants of Prohear were using a nativepanned electrum as well as composing intentional alloys. The natural electrums contained 35 to 44 percent silver and less than 0.2 percent copper,while the intentional alloys contained the same low copper content but ahigher silver content of 56 to 68 percent.37

Determining the gold composition of objects can conclusively identifymodern copies of ancient artifacts. Contaminants such as cadmium and indium may be present in the alloy, or the gold may be shown to be made ofmodern refined gold. The mango-shaped ornament shown in figure 6.1 wasmanufactured from modern refined gold (table 6.1), and the analyses of apurportedly ninth-century Cham earring (figures 6.2–3 and table 6.2) weretroubling enough to reinforce doubts already raised by its manufacture,which included the use of a modern flux and modern solder. Compositionthat identifies some items as fake can be evident when one has access tolaboratory equipment, but it will not be apparent to the naked eye or on aphotograph. The Indonesian breastplate shown in figure 6.4, for example,was shown to be composed of a modern metal with a thin covering of goldplating. In contrast, a correct alloy composition with platinoid inclusionsderived from alluvial gold supports authenticity but cannot be used toprove an object authentic (table 6.3, figure 6.5). Villagers can be seenpanning for gold today using the same simple methods employed sinceprehistory, the economic viability being in part determined by the price ofgold on the international market. When gold prices are at their highest itbecomes more economically advantageous to pan the streams, and the villagers sell their gold to middlemen who themselves sell to merchants.Local goldsmiths have been observed using this gold to produce objects,some of which stylistically replicate ancient beads (figure 6.6).

Techniques used to determine composition include Inductively Coupled-Mass Spectrometry (with samples produced by means of laser ablation,


nebulizers, or other mechanisms), Atomic Absorption Analysis, X-ray-based methods (fluorescence, scattering, diffraction, etc.), and macroscopicand microscopic imaging.


Figure 6.1 A fake ornament in the shape of a mango.

ppmDetection

LimitAluminum 3.7 1Antimony 0.15 0.06Arsenic ND 30Barium 0.08 0.06Beryllium ND 0.06Bismuth ND 0.06Boron 13.7 8Bromine 36 20Cadmium ND 0.06Calcium 183 40Cerium ND 0.06Cesium ND 0.06Chromium ND 300Cobalt ND 0.06Copper 610 0.4Dysprosium ND 0.06Erbium ND 0.06Europium ND 0.06Gadolinium ND 0.06Gallium 0.76 0.1Germanium 0.14 0.1Gold MATRIX 0Hafnium ND 0.06Holmium ND 0.06Iodine 3.11 1Iridium ND 0.06Iron 81 40Lanthanum ND 0.06Lead 25.6 0.06Lithium 0.26 0.1Lutetium ND 0.3Magnesium 1.71 0.7Manganese 0.65 0.2Mercury ND 0.06

ppmDetection

LimitMolybdenum ND 0.2Neodymium ND 0.06Nickel 1.02 0.08Niobium ND 0.06Osmium ND 0.06Palladium 4.1 0.06Phosphorus 36 20Platinum 0.88 0.06Potassium ND 100Praseodymium ND 0.06Rhenium ND 0.06Rhodium ND 0.06Rubidium ND 0.06Ruthenium ND 0.06Samarium 0.44 0.06Selenium ND 6Silver* 7,100 9Sodium 23.9 6Strontium 0.11 0.06Tantalum ND 0.06Tellurium 0.22 0.06Thallium ND 0.06Thorium 0.74 0.06Thulium ND 0.06Tin 4.6 0.06Titanium ND 10Tungsten ND 0.06Uranium ND 0.06Vanadium ND 90Ytterbium ND 0.06Yttrium ND 0.06Zinc 41 0.7Zirconium ND 0.06

Table 6.1 Inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry analysis of the fake mango-shaped ornament shown in figure 6.1

191

192

Figure 6.2 A fake earring. Diam. 3.6 cm.

Figure 6.3 Close-up of a fake earring showing solder.

Figure 6.4 Object made of modern metal with a thin covering of gold. W. 25.5 cm.

Table 6.2 Inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry analysis of the fake earringshown in figure 6.2

194

ppmDetection

LimitAluminum 14.9 0.3Antimony 17.8 0.01Arsenic 49 7Barium 0.24 0.01Beryllium 0.04 0.01Bismuth 6.7 0.01Boron 4 2Bromine 7.8 2Cadmium 0.03 0.01Calcium 202 10Cerium 0.02 0.01Cesium ND 0.01Chromium 111 60Cobalt 6.8 0.01Copper* 54,000 0.09Dysprosium ND 0.01Erbium ND 0.01Europium ND 0.01Gadolinium ND 0.01Gallium 0.79 0.02Germanium 0.09 0.01Gold MATRIX 0Hafnium ND 0.01Holmium ND 0.01Iodine 3.4 0.2Iridium 0.52 0.01Iron 2,950 10Lanthanum ND 0.01Lead 29.1 0.01Lithium 0.09 0.03Lutetium ND 0.03Magnesium 3.9 0.1Manganese 10.6 0.05Mercury 0.35 0.01

ppmDetection

LimitMolybdenum 0.46 0.04Neodymium ND 0.01Nickel 78 0.02Niobium ND 0.01Osmium ND 0.01Palladium 5.5 0.01Phosphorus 24.6 5Platinum 168 0.01Potassium ND 20Praseodymium ND 0.01Rhenium ND 0.01Rhodium 0.82 0.01Rubidium 0.04 0.01Ruthenium 0.08 0.01Samarium 0.08 0.01Selenium ND 1Silver* 2,520 2Sodium 24.4 1Strontium 0.08 0.01Tantalum ND 0.01Tellurium 2.1 0.01Thallium ND 0.01Thorium 0.77 0.01Thulium ND 0.01Tin 520 0.01Titanium 4.6 2Tungsten 0.07 0.01Uranium ND 0.01Vanadium ND 20Ytterbium ND 0.01Yttrium ND 0.01Zinc 24.8 0.1Zirconium 0.02 0.01

195

ppmDetection

LimitMolybdenum ND 4Neodymium ND 1Nickel 3 2Niobium ND 1Osmium ND 1Palladium 3 1Phosphorus ND 500Platinum 190 1Potassium ND 2,000Praseodymium ND 1Rhenium ND 1Rhodium 2 1Rubidium ND 1Ruthenium ND 1Samarium 2 1Selenium ND 100Silver* 28,400 200Sodium ND 100Strontium ND 1Tantalum ND 1Tellurium ND 5Thallium ND 1Thorium ND 1Thulium ND 1Tin ND 1Titanium ND 200Tungsten ND 1Uranium ND 1Vanadium ND 2,000Ytterbium ND 1Yttrium ND 1Zinc ND 20Zirconium ND 1

ppmDetection

LimitAluminum 41 30Antimony ND 1Arsenic ND 800Barium ND 1Beryllium ND 1Bismuth 2 1Boron ND 200Bromine ND 1,000Cadmium ND 1Calcium ND 1,000Cerium ND 1Cesium ND 1Chromium ND 6,000Cobalt ND 1Copper* 17,000 9Dysprosium ND 1Erbium ND 1Europium ND 1Gadolinium ND 1Gallium ND 10Germanium ND 9Gold MATRIX 0Hafnium ND 1Holmium ND 1Iodine ND 100Iridium ND 1Iron ND 1,000Lanthanum ND 1Lead 15 1Lithium ND 3Lutetium ND 30Magnesium ND 20Manganese ND 5Mercury ND 1

Table 6.3 Inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry analysis of a hammeredgold sheet appliqué, Philippines

Evidence of Use

Examination of an object under a microscope helps us develop a picture ofits history prior to deposition. If an object was not used or had a purelyritual significance, it will have a very different appearance under the micro-scope than that of an object that was in use over a long period. Jewelryhanded down as an heirloom over several generations and deposited forsafekeeping will show a characteristic pattern of random microscratches,some of which may be quite distinct while others are almost completelyworn away. A gold object that was part of a jeweler’s hoard, such as onefrom Kota Cina in northeastern Sumatra,38 will appear fresh and unwornunder the microscope, even if it was buried for hundreds of years. However,it will have developed a patina characteristic of that deposition. Purerforms of gold are universally thought of as durable and stable, but this isnot true. Gold’s superficial layer is subject to dissolution due to bothcyanogenic glucosides present in certain plants or the amino acids produced

196

Figure 6.5 A platinoid inclusion viewed under a microscope.


197

Figure 6.6 A goldsmith uses alluvial gold to produce objects that stylistically repli-cate ancient beads.

by certain microorganisms.39 An awareness of the types of potential deteri-oration and how this can change the appearance of an excavated object isrelevant to any technological examination or conservation treatment. It canalso provide invaluable information for determining its authenticity. Fakepatinas, in the form of iron-rich oil-based solutions, may have been appliedto the surface of modern gold. When the solution evaporates, iron crystals,which have grown in situ, appear to the uninitiated as an authentic burialpatina (figures 6.7–8).

Deciding on the best course for cleaning authentic gold objects can bemore complex than initially suspected. Superficial tarnish, which can be attractive and highly desirable, is referred to as “patina.” It will be extremely

Figure 6.7 An iron-rich oil-based solution was applied to the surface of this fakeeleventh-century Liao gold object.


199

thin and can be readily damaged or accidentally removed through injudi-cious handling. This tarnish can be derived from the deposition of metalions from groundwater, as in the case of the reddish iron staining often apparent on excavated gold surfaces (figure 6.9).40 In other cases the tarnishmay be less visually pleasing, such as that produced by the reaction of theimpurities in the gold with sulphur containing pollutants such as hydrogensulphide. Gold jewelry in museum collections has been observed coveredin whiskerlike crystals that have been identified by X-ray diffraction as primarily silver sulphides with some copper sulphides, produced from thereaction of the silver and copper in the gold with sulphur in the atmosphere.Studies have shown that even gold objects of quite high purity with only8 percent silver will undergo some reaction with sulphur.41 While this re -action is accelerated at high humidity, experiments have shown that it willalso occur in dry air. Good environmental control is not sufficient protectionwithout the accompanying control of air quality and exhibition and storage

Figure 6.8 The iron crystals resemble an authentic patina.

materials. While it is certainly evident that museums are now moving awayfrom sulphur-rich velvets and dark cloths for display backings, it is stillcommon — especially in dealers’ galleries and private collections — to seegold wrapped in these textiles or packed in boxes lined with them. Conser-vation storage should employ inert materials such as polyethylene foam,which can be cut to suitable shapes to fit around fragile objects, or moldedresins to provide support. Other conservation decisions involve whether ornot to remove associated material, such as textile remains. These may haveoriginally covered the object during burial and been replaced with corrodingiron salts, thus preserving the exact weave pattern. Should such evidence beremoved to expose a decorated gold surface or should it be preserved aspart of the history of the object?


Figure 6.9 Arched ear ornament 2087.142.94, seen in Miksic 2011a:171, pl. 47. Cast,with no reworking, original patina. Photograph courtesy of the Yale University ArtGallery.


Manufacture of the Earliest Gold in Southeast Asia

The simple mechanical hammering of gold is the most logical first step inproduction. The earliest known gold objects in Southeast Asia are a fewbeads found at coastal sites in southern Vietnam and dated to the third orsecond centuries BCE.42 These funerary objects were clearly highly prizedand were found associated with agate, nephrite, and quartz beads, lingling-o earrings, and a bimetallic ax. The gold artifacts from this early period areoften isolated finds subsequently recorded in local villagers’ collections.Some share characteristic features that indicate a trade network linking theSoutheast Asian mainland, the outer islands, the Philippines, and India thatwas already in place by the second half of the first millennium BCE. Centralknobbed gold beads excavated at Giong Ca Vo (figure 6.10) and other Sa-Huynh related sites resemble surface finds from the site of Khao Sam Kaeoin peninsular Thailand,43 and a similar bead is in the Thompson Collec-tion.44 A gold five-lobed rosette plate, a surface find from Khao Sam Kaeo,is similar to artifacts recovered by Fox from the Guri and Tadyaw Caves ofthe Tabon complex in the Palawan Islands (Pryce, Bellina-Pryce, and Bennett 2006). Fox dates these artifacts to the Early Metal Age (between500 and 300 BCE) and the Developed Metal Age (100 BCE to 300 CE)respec tively.45 Several of the gold ornaments recorded in private collectionsaround the peninsular site of Khao Sam Kaeo, including the characteristicpolyhedral gold beads (figure 6.11), bear strong stylistic similarities to findsrecorded from the early commercial center of Oc-Eo in the Mekong Deltain southern Vietnam,46 to beads from numerous Pyu sites in Myanmar,47and to others observed in private collections (figure 6.12).

Figure 6.10 Central knobbed beads, Giong Ca Vo, Vietnam. Photograph courtesyof Ng. Kim Dung.

Figure 6.11 Polyhedral gold bead from Khao Sam Kaeo. Photograph courtesy ofB. Bellina.

Figure 6.12 Polyhedral gold bead. Photograph courtesy of U Win Muang.

Gold provided a fitting symbol of eternity after death, as it is almost immune to the ravages of time. It was used as coverings for the eyes, nose,and mouth of the deceased (figure 6.13). Some of the simplest forms of objects are the hammered burial masks dated to as early as the first centuryCE. These have been found in Gilimanuk in western Bali,48 in Java,49 atGiong Lon in Vietnam in association with coins dating the site to 200BCE,50 and at later sites in Sulawesi and the Philippines. Sheets of hammered gold continued to be used throughout the protohistoric and the historic periods. The cemetery of Go Thap, dated to as early as the second centuryCE, has provided some of the earliest known Hindu iconographic images inSoutheast Asia.51 In 2001, 322 gold plaques with simple incised decorationdepicting figures, fishes, and animals were excavated.52 The plaques were

Figure 6.13 Funerary face cover. Photograph courtesy of Thomas Murray.


deposited as an offering together with five gold discs, three gold rings, agold flower, eight precious stones, and seven pieces of glass.

The first step in the production of hammered sheet would have beenthe casting of a gold ingot. This would then have been repeatedly hammeredand annealed until the required reduction in thickness was achieved. It ispossible to see the separation of the gold layers under magnification. In theexample in figure 6.14, the surface of the gold suggests that the object is inits excavated condition, and there does not appear to have been any attemptto reshape it. The surface patina indicates that there have been no recent interventions such as cleaning, and the soil deposits remain deeply embed-ded in the recesses.

The date at which scissors were introduced to Southeast Asia is unclear,although it is generally accepted that they were not used in protohistoric orearly historic times.53Cutting at this time was invariably achieved using a


Figure 6.14 Detail of the funerary face cover depicted in figure 6.13. Separation ofthe gold layers is visible under a microscope.


knife or a straight-edged chisel. An engraved line that is sometimes visibleimmediately adjacent to a cut edge indicates that shapes were preplannedand drawn using an engraving tool prior to cutting the metal. Designs cutout using straight-edged, chisellike tools result in characteristic jaggededges and feathering patterns in the curved areas caused by manipulatingstraight-edged tools around corners. The lotus flower in the ThompsonCollection at Yale shown in figure 6.15 was constructed from several sheetsof hammered gold. This was cut in the shape of petals, each decorated witha central engraved line. The edges of the sheet were simply finished by ham-mering and folding the excess metal onto the reverse. The petals were

Figure 6.15 Ritual object in the shape of a lotus flower, 2008.21.27, seen in Miksic2011a:207, pl. 73. The edges of the sheet were finished by hammering, and the excessmetal was folded onto the reverse. Photograph courtesy of the Yale University ArtGallery.

joined using a suspension loop formed by a hammered strip of gold endingin a butterfly anchor, which was originally hidden by a central inlay.

Although excavated material from temples is rare, occasionally someitems are recovered. At Wat Phu, Champassak, Laos, offerings of gold dustand small grains were found. A gold diadem, pectoral rings, and earrings,recovered under a laterite slab, are now displayed in the Phimai Museum,and other items have found their way into private collections.54 Tostrengthen fragile sheet gold objects, a support material was frequentlyadded to give weight to the object. The ancient Greeks and Romans usedsulphur; in the early Islamic world pitch was used; and in Southeast Asiaresin appears to have been the preferred fill material. The eighth- to tenth-century Cham Kosa masks (figures 6.16–17) are made of quite thick hammered sheet shaped by means of repoussé. The resin used in examplesat the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museé Guimet has been chem-ically identified as a dammar resin.55 It would be possible to date this resinusing carbon-14 analysis, although to my knowledge this has not yet beenundertaken.

Kosa masks are part of a large group of objects that appeared on the artmarket over the last twenty years (figure 6.18). Some of the heads that Ihave examined are undoubtedly modern replicas. Others show the technicalcharacteristics and surface patination consistent with ancient artifacts.There is no information concerning their in situ burial environment becausethey were all found incidentally. The fragile nature and very good state ofpreservation of those that appear to be ancient suggest that they were deposited in a receptacle, which was then buried, rather than placed un-protected directly in the ground. The masks are similar both stylisticallyand technically to one published by Henry Parmentier in the 1920s, whichwas housed in the Hanoi Museum but is now lost,56 and to another foundin 1997 in Quang Nam province.57 The masks were assembled from severalsheets of hammered electrum and hammered silver joined using sawtoothseams.58 The metal sheets had been worked from the back to produce a repoussé design with the main portion of the head made of two sheets ofmetal, the face of electrum, and the back of the head of silver.59 The hammered silver sheets have blackened, due to the formation of silver sulphide alteration products, and the silver metal has become brittle due tothe preferential dissolution of the less stable metal, stress corrosion, and agehardening. In some examples the topknot is inserted into a metal collar


Figure 6.16 Silver and electrum Kosa mask, c. eighth–tenth century, central Vietnam. H. 17.3 cm.

attached to the head, and in other examples the topknot is attached usingsilver ribbon soldered onto the interior of the topknot and bent over andsecured by inserting the two ends into a hole in the top of the head. Theears are invariably made separately and are attached with either a sawtoothseam, as in the Museé Guimet’s example, or a silver ribbon. The neckportion of the head is made from sheet metal, presumably used to attachthe heads to a linga cover via rivet holes approximately three millimeters indiameter cut out near the outer edge. The Guimet head is still associatedwith the linga itself, now restored, which was hammered out of a sheet ofsilver with a vertical seam. Another separate sheet of silver was mechanicallyfitted to form the upper rounded part of the linga, and the base was re -inforced using a third piece of silver, which allowed the head to sit on a

Figure 6.17 Top of the head of the Kosa mask in figure 6.16 showing the organicresin core. The area from which the sample of the gold and silver alloy was removedis at the center.


Figure 6.18 A Kosa mask that I have examined.

stone pedestal. Some of the masks have little loops made of hammered wireapproximately one millimeter thick attached to the top of the ears, presum-ably used to attach dangles. The Guimet mask has associated gold repousséearrings and a necklace made of hammered sheet, decorated with an uncutruby held in place by a small piece of gold sheet soldered onto the reverse.

Modern Milling

Examination under a microscope can sometimes readily identify modernmanufacturing techniques. Milling, a modern process not used in the ancient world, produces sheet gold of an extremely even thickness withsharp parallel striations due to the gold being rolled through a steel mill to

Figure 6.19 Gold manuscript made of modern machine-rolled gold.



reduce its thickness (figure 6.19). These striations can sometimes only beseen on an x-radiograph.

Methods of Joining

The individual components of objects can be assembled by mechanicalmeans using silver or gold ties; by using a carbon compound mixed withglue, as is used for granulation (see below); or by a more conventionalsolder. Modern solders often contain substantial amounts of modern alloy-ing metals such as cadmium, and. although this may be the result of a mod-ern repair, there is usually other evidence of a recent restoration. Ancientlead-tin solders, on the other hand, will be highly susceptible to corrosionand should therefore be completely mineralized.

Punching and Engraving

Chasing tools such as small chisels are tapped with a hammer to producesingle punches or connected lines. The gold is displaced, but no metal is removed. When a chaser rather than a punch has been used to producecurved lines, a feathering pattern is formed (figure 6.20). On fake gold, designs are often crudely stamped rather than decorated using individualpunch marks (figure 6.21). Fakes can also be identified by very sharp v- section engravings, which are more characteristic of modern steel toolsused to cut into the gold.

Gilding

Because gold can be hammered repeatedly to achieve very thin sheet andleaf without fracturing or cracking, it lends itself to the covering of objects.Clay beads wrapped in gold foil excavated at the large Iron Age cemeterysite of Noen U-Loke provide the earliest evidence of the technique ofgilding in Southeast Asia.60These beads were produced by simply wrappinghammered gold foil over square-shaped clay cores (figure 6.22). The associ-ated burial of a man wearing silver ear coils covered in gold leaf,61 anothergold-covered silver earring reported from Prohear,62 and glass earrings reportedly from Phum Snay illustrate that gold was used to cover both lessexpensive materials and materials of considerable value. In the case of the

Figure 6.20 The feathering pattern that results when a straight chaser is used toproduce curved lines.

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earring from Noen U-Loke, the gold appears to have been simply wrappedover the silver, although in other examples it may have been burnishedonto the surface with or without the addition of applied heat to promotesome solid state diffusion of the gold with the metal beneath.

At the site of Halin in Myanmar, farmers found an upper jawbone containing gold inlaid teeth (figure 6.23).63 The farmers were in the processof removing the gold when the collector U Win Maung was able to acquirethe intact jawbone. The maxilla contained eight teeth, which had been filedflat, drilled with a pattern of tiny holes, and filled with layers of gold foil,each layer of foil being contact welded to the layer beneath it.64

Gold leaf, which is thinner than foil, has been widely used to coverlarge statues of stone and bronze. Within the Khmer empire, a subterraneanchamber at Jayavarman II’s eighth-century Ak Yum temple was found tocontain two elephant statues covered in gold leaf.65 The roofs of templeswould have originally been covered in gold leaf, and the tenth-century

Figure 6.21 A crudely stamped design rather than one produced using an individualpunch.

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Figure 6.22 Beads produced by hammering gold into foil, which was wrapped oversquare-shaped clay cores. Diam. 4 mm. Noen U-Loke, Thailand. Photograph courtesy of Charles Higham.

214


temple complex of Jayavarman V was known as Hemasringagiri, meaning“the mountain with the golden summits.” When Zhou Daguan recordedhis mission to Angkor in 1296, he wrote that there were towers of goldrising above the surrounding walls and a golden bridge with gilded lions.Gold was used to cover the giant stone heads at the gates, and he describesan island with a golden temple in the middle of Angkor Wat.66

Later mercury gilding, also known as fire gilding, was adopted as atechnique. The application of gold could be controlled up to a very thinlayer. This had the advantage of minimizing the cost relative to the use ofthicker gold foil, and the application of a very thin layer of gold did not obscure the decorative details cast into the object being gilded. The tech-nique is based on the fact that mercury and gold combine to form a pastyliquid, which can be applied to baser metals; when the object is heated the

Figure 6.23 Gold inlaid teeth, Halin, Myanmar. Photograph courtesy of B. Hudson.

mercury is driven off and the gold is left attached to the surface. The use ofthis technique is identifiable by analytical methods, even if it is not visible,because a small amount of mercury will invariably remain within the gold.Pliny the Elder mentions the technique of cold mercury gilding.67 Thistechnique involves spreading mercury over the object’s surface and thenapplying the gold leaf, forming an amalgam at the interface between thegold and the object. Analytical methods based on the detection of mercurycannot readily distinguish between these two techniques. Mercury gildingis known to have been used in China during the Warring States period inthe second half of the first millennium BCE, and the gilded images fromDian Shizhaishan were evidently done by mercury amalgam gilding. Thetechnique does not appear to have been widely used in Southeast Asia untilmuch later.68 This may in part be due to the fact that sacred images werecast from highly leaded bronzes, which are difficult to mercury gild becausethe lead dissolves into the gold surface, spoiling the appearance.

The presence of a gold layer on a bronze article causes an acceleratedcorrosion of the underlying bronze due to the large difference in electro-chemical potential between the gold and the underlying metal. Gold will becathodically protected, and this causes progressive corrosion of the bronze.69The accompanying volume increase of the underlying copper chloride(ataca mite) corrosion products eventually pushes the gilding off (figure6.24). In cases in which aggressive solutions have been used to artificiallyinduce corrosion, the morphology and composition of the corrosion products will not be consistent with those of long-term burial.

Granulation

Other forms of decoration include granulation, a technique involving theapplication of small gold spheres in rows or fields that has been used abun-dantly in Southeast Asian jewelry. The earliest documented granulationwas found at the late centuries BCE Sa Huynh site of Giong Ca Vo in south-ern Vietnam. Reinecke also describes an earring with granulation fromProhear (see his contribution in this volume). In later times granulationwas widely used, although it is not always be easy to determine whethergranules were achieved using this technique or casting.

Granules are produced by melting small pieces of gold into spheres. Thetechnique involves sticking the granules onto gold sheet using a mixture of



a powdered copper compound and an organic adhesive. The assemblage isthen heated, and while the glue burns to carbon, the copper compound isreduced in situ to copper metal, which diffuses into the surrounding gold.A copper-gold alloy bond is formed directly at the point of contact betweenthe granules and the gold sheet, thus forming an almost invisible join(figure 6.25). Granulation is almost invariably confined to the decorating ofthin gold sheet, since thicker cast gold would conduct heat so rapidly thatthe gold granules would be liable to melt before they could be fused intoplace.70 Modern copies of objects with granulation will often have telltalesigns of the use of solder. The solder, fused with the aid of a borax flux, surrounds the granules so that they are embedded and flooded within the solder.

Figure 6.24 The volume increase of the underlying copper corrosion products havepushed parts of the gilding off this statue. Yale University Art Gallery 2008.21.94.Photograph courtesy of the Yale University Art Gallery.

Wire

The use of thin strands of metal wire is a universal design feature in goldworking. A piece of gold can be worked into a long, thin strand either byhammering, twisting, and rolling or by pulling the wire through a series ofholes of decreasing diameter in an iron or steel draw plate. Drawn wire hasan even circular section and is characterized by parallel striations thatfollow the axis of the wire. It is used predominantly in jewelry of the laterclassic period in Java, and fragments have been excavated at the twelfth-century workshop site of Kota Cina in northeastern Sumatra.71 Althoughthere have been suggestions that later classic period jewelry was influencedby the increasing trade with the Islamic world after about 1000 CE, there


Figure 6.25 Detail of granulation, Yale University Art Gallery 2007.142.213.


Figure 6.26 This earring, reportedly from Prohear, Cambodia, is made of hammeredand folded gold sheet. Grain boundary cracking and embrittlement are visible.

are now other possibilities. Ogden has identified drawn wire in early Koreangold work of the Silla kingdom (fifth to sixth centuries),72 and this suggeststhat wire drawing may have been introduced from the Far East. Wire draw-ing by the end of the T’ang period seems possible, and it was certainlywidespread in China by the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries. Since it wasnot until toward the end of the first millennium CE that the technique be-came widespread, all ancient gold wire should show evidence of hammeringand folding, as seen on an earring reportedly found at Prohear in Cambodia(figure 6.26) and an earring from Vietnam (figure 6.27). The ends of wire

used in jewelry can often provide clues to authenticity, as seen in figure 6.28where evidence for the use of modern tools for cutting is apparent.

Casting

In Southeast Asia, casting was used more often than in the classical world,where gold ornaments were more likely to be made employing the moretime consuming but less wasteful technique of hammering. This is probablydue to the means by which the goldsmiths obtained their gold. It is unlikely


Figure 6.27 Spiral earring, Vietnam.


that the artisans themselves would have had the capital to hold stocks ofgold, and commissioning on an individual basis, with patrons supplyingtheir own gold in the form of scrap or ingots, would have influenced thechosen method of manufacture. Casting would have required the goldsmithto have access to a surplus of gold metal, since an allowance would havehad to be made for the excess metal required in the casting sprues. If, as wesuspect, gold in the Khmer empire was centrally controlled, the requiredexcess metal would have been of little consequence, since it would simplyhave been melted down and reused in subsequent castings.73

Javanese seam-free finger rings were cast as blanks and then engravedand polished. Some blank undecorated examples have been recovered, andsome of these have the rough-casting skin still intact, suggesting that local

Figure 6.28 Modern cutting on gold wire.

workshops applied the decoration on demand (figures 6.29–32). In someexamples the decoration itself appears to have been cast in with no subse-quent reworking of the design (figure 6.33). Some items were cast (figure6.34) and some further decorated by the application of gold wire (figure6.35). Other items that had been assumed to be made by hammering andtwisting appear to have been cast. The rope-twisted wire rings prevalentduring the protoclassic period in Java, for example, were usually made bywrapping hammered gold wire around a shank (figure 6.36). The identifica-tion of cast examples raises the possibility of unrecorded techniques ofmanufacture or later copying (figure 6.37).


Figure 6.29 Javanese quatrefoil bezel ring cast as a blank with chased inscription.

Figure 6.30 Detail of the ring shown in figure 6.29.

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Figure 6.31 Dieng-style seal ring, Yale University Art Gallery 2007.142.22, seen inMiksic 2011a:153, pl. 33, bottom left.. Viewed under a microscope, there is evidenceof casting.

224

225

Figure 6.32 Ring, Yale University Art Gallery 2007.142.22. Viewed under a micro-scope, the design is chased in.

Figure 6.33 Ring, Yale University Art Gallery 2007.142.35. Viewed under a micro-scope, the design is cast in.

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Figure 6.34 Cham Ring, cast.

Figure 6.35 Cham earring, cast with added wire.

Figure 6.36 Rope-twisted ring.

Figure 6.37 Wire-wrapped ring, Yale University Art Gallery 2007.142.55, seen inMiksic 2011a:117. Viewed under a microscope, the cast surface is visible.

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Conclusion

Gold appears in the Southeast Asian archaeological record in the secondhalf of the first millennium BCE— about the same time as iron, semipreciousstone polishing, and glass production — suggesting that the techniques ofgold extraction and working were introduced into Southeast Asia via Indianand/or Chinese merchants seeking gold ores.74Unfortunately, the archaeo-logical picture is skewed by looting and recycling. Throughout history, goldhas been melted down to produce new items for wealthy patrons. The studyof the development of Southeast Asian gold, and the organization of production within the region, is hindered by the lack of a settled chronologyand by the large number of well-made fakes. An understanding of thedifferent manufacturing and decorative techniques employed over timeand across various geographic regions; of the different purities of gold used;and of the different technical solutions chosen to achieve the same effects ofwire making, granulation, joining, relief work, and gilding provides an objective method of study.

Notes

I gratefully acknowledge the support of Yale University, especially Ruth Barnesand Benjamin Diebold, who have greatly facilitated this work. Diebold hastaken enormous care and trouble in proofreading this essay. I am, as always,deeply indebted to Ian C. Glover for so many useful discussions.

I am grateful to Dr. Bérénice Bellina-Pryce and Praon Silapanth, the directorsof Khao Sam Kaeo in eastern peninsular Thailand, for allowing me access to thematerial from the site; to Kim Dung Nguyen for information concerning GiongPhet and Giong Ca Vo in southern Vietnam; to U Win Muang for allowing mefree access to his collection; to Charles Higham for allowing me to use thephoto graph from Noen U-Locke reproduced in figure 6.22; to Andreas Reineckefor information on Prohear and Giong Ca Vo; to Thomas Murray, KarimGrusenmeyer, and others for allowing me unlimited access to their collections;and to Lisa Kelman for a final proofreading.

I would like to dedicate this article to Prof. Gert Bachman, who inspired mewhen I was an undergraduate and has spent much of his life working with gold.

1 Until the end of the Iron Age, gold was placed in traditional inhumation burialsthat are found throughout Southeast Asia. By the early centuries CE, Indianized

burial practices had been adopted by those cultures of Southeast Asia that hadcome under South Asian influence.

2 See Glover’s and Reinecke’s contributions to this volume; Bellina and Silapanth2006; O’Reilly and Sytha 2001; and Reinecke, Vin, and Seng 2009.

3 Beads from the Lopburi Artillery site in central Thailand were reportedly foundin a pre-Dvaravati context (Bennett 1988:37); in 1999 Iron Age gold items thatare said to have included a bronze helmet inlaid with gold and gold jewelrywere plundered from the site of Phum Snay, north of the Tonle Sap in Cambodia(O’Reilly and Sytha 2001:265-66; Higham 2002:214; Stark 2004:96); two hammered gold ear spools were reportedly found with a large Dongson drumat another site in northeastern Cambodia; and hammered sheet gold finds aresaid to come from a site near Battambang, west of Angkor in Cambodia.

4 In Reinecke’s opinion less than 5 percent of the gold found in Southeast Asiacomes to light. The rest is simply melted down. In the case of pre-Columbiangold, objects were regularly sent to London to be melted down into gold barsfor the Spanish crown, and looted material became a major economic stimulusfor the Spanish economy. Some of the salvaged and magnificent material sent toLondon was saved by Johnson Matthey, Ltd., and was subsequently purchasedby the British Museum (Scott 2013).

5 See Ian C. Glover’s contribution to this volume. 6 The International Journal of Cultural Property reported in 2013 that “what is not

looted is fake and what is not fake is looted” (Scott 2013:65). 7 Miksic (1988) and Stambolov (1999) have both commented that with regard to

Javanese jewelry it was only in the last few decates that gold objects becameworth more than the intrinsic value of the gold itself. They believe that any objects that can be shown to be at least sixty years old are authentic, since atthat time there would have been no incentive to falsify them.

8 Geological gold contains traces of radioactive uranium, which decays andemits alpha particles. These particles recombine to form helium molecules,which become trapped in the gold until the gold is melted down. Whereas ancient gold will have accumulated a small amount of helium, modern gold,melted in recent times, is free of helium (Kossolapov and Chugunova 2002).

9 Randerson 2004. 10 Prehistoric gold from Ireland contains platinum, while that from continental

Europe does not. 11 Although only the Philippines, with its gold-rich copper ores, is a significant

Southeast Asian producer in the modern world, in the historical period thelargest sustained gold yields probably came from western Borneo, northeasternLuzon, and especially western Sumatra. To quote Bennet Bronson, “The Philip-pines may also be the only part of the region that ever had gold deposits thatcould be called truly large and rich by anyone except impressionable travellersand salesmen of mining shares” (1992:83). Indeed, the trading centers in centralLuzon, which operated from the tenth century through Spanish contact in thesixteenth, may have arisen due to their proximity to these rich gold ore sources,


which would have made them attractive centers for the maritime trading net-work. Certainly when the Europeans first started to mine these Southeast Asiangoldfields in the nineteenth century they reportedly found abundant evidenceof earlier activities.

12 Bowles 1988. 13 The fifth-century Sanskrit text Brhatkathã-Slokasamgraha, composed by

Budhaswãmi, tells the story of merchants who traveled to Suvarnabhumi bysea. Having crossed the “unfathomable” sea, they arrived at a coast and embarkedon a long journey by foot, traveling past the forested foothills of high mountains,which they then crossed, finally reaching a forest and a shallow river rich ingold sands (Dube, Suvarnahumi, and Suvarnadvipa 2003:6).

14 Alluvial gold has been recorded in northwestern Cambodia in Oddar Meancheyprovince near Banteay Chhmar, in the north-central area in Preah Vihearprovince in Rovieng district, and in the northeast in Rattanakiri province. SeeHieda, Yoshimitsu, and Shigeru 2008:141; and Reinecke, Vin, and Seng 2009.

15 Reinecke and Lê Duy Sơn 2000. 16 Treloar 1977. 17 Treloar and Fabris 1985; Stambolov 1999. 18 Manning, McKinnon, and Treloar 1980; Swan and Scott 1990. 19 Majumdar ([1936] 1986:158–59) translated rakta kaladhautam as “gold” and

sitatara kaladhautam as “silver,” but Dube, Suvarnahumi, and Suvarnadvipa(2003) has reevaluated the texts and reached a more convincing explanation ofrakta kaladhautam as red gold and sitatara kaladhautam as white gold.

20 Kangle 1960. 21 Indus earth, thought to be a saline soil rich in niter and ammonium salts, which

is collected from the Indian river valleys and used for the patination of zinc-rich bidri ware, would have removed the silver, and the cupellation with leadwould have removed any base metal oxides (ibid.:2.13.47).

22 Punishments were imposed according to the rank of the offender, with royalprinces being fined twenty pala of gold (Majumdar 1953:268–69).

23 Bennett and Mango 1994. 24 The base metal oxides are absorbed into the lead oxide, leaving only silver

remaining with the gold. 25 Swan and Scott 1990. 26 Chutiwongs and Srisuchat 1996:250. 27 Hinzler 1999:27. 28 See Miksic 2011a:pl. 73. 29 See Paul Jett, unpublished analysis, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1999.

Although these analyses were only of the surface composition, the weight andsoftness of the metal itself suggest that the gold was of a high purity.

30 Malleret 1959–63; Vo Si Khai 2003.


31 Malleret 1962:460. 32 While it is abundantly clear that there was an extensive trade with both India

and China in the early historical periods, the surviving inscriptions, texts, andearly travel writings provide very little evidence concerning the organization ofthe gold supplies. The early Chinese text known as The History of Southern Ch’i,which was written in the fifth century CE, describes the inhabitants of the pre-Angkor kingdom of Funan as having gold, silver, and silks, but there is no indication as to where the gold was sourced: “The inhabitants of Funan makerings and bracelets of gold and plates of silver” (Coedès 1968:58). A Chineseemissary, Chou Ta-Kuan (Zho Daguan), who visited the Khmer complex ofAngkor during 1295–96, included in his “Notes on the Customs of Cambodia”descriptions of the Khmer king wearing gold diadems, bracelets, anklets, andrings; his horses decorated with gold; elephant tusks covered in gold; goldparasol handles; and various items of gold jewelry. Unfortunately there is no indication in his accounts of the royal court as to whether the gold was derivedfrom local exploitation, traded in as bullion, or gifted as finished articles.

33 Higham 2002:233; Le Xuan Diem, Dao Linh Con, Vo Si Khai, and Van Hoa1995:338–65; Mallaret 1962:41; Manguin 2004; Miksic 2003:18-–9.

34 Miksic 1990, 2011a. 35 Reinecke, Vin, and Seng 2009. See also Reinecke’s contribution to this volume. 36 See Schlosser 2009. 37 The platinoid inclusions were present in greater concentration in the intentional

alloys that had the higher gold content and lower silver content because theconcentration of the platinoids originally contained within the alluvial gold become diluted when silver is intentionally added.

38 Swan and Scott 1990. 39 Some people are unable to wear gold due to the amino acids it produces. 40 See Miksic 2011a:171, pl. 47. 41 Tuccillo and Nielsen 1971. 42 See the map in Reinecke, Vin, and Seng 2009, fig. 2. 43 Dang and Vu 1997:41, pl. 17; Pryce et al. 2006:fig. 14. 44 Valerie and Hunter Thompson Collection, Yale University Art Gallery 2007.

142.295. 45 Fox 1970. 46 Malleret 1962:pl. XII. 47 Richter 2000; Pryce et al. 2006:310. 48 Soejono 1979. 49 Miksic 1988. 50 Vũ Quốc Hiền, Trương Đắc Chiến, and Lê Văn Chiến 2008. 51 Le Thi Lien 2006. Higham dates the site to 400–600 CE (2001:31).


52 The gold plaques depict turtles representing Vishnu and his mount, the eagleGaruda, water buffaloes, elephants, snakes, conch shells, the sun, plants, andhouses on piles.

53 Roman scissors and shears existed, but the fine tools needed for delicate and accurate cutting of smallish sheet gold components would have been difficult toproduce. The elaborate silver scissors used in T’ang times may have been intended for hair cutting rather than metalworking

54 Bunker and Latchford 2004. 55 Guy 2000; Baptiste 2002; Jarrige 2002. Analysi undertaken by author. 56 Parmentier [1922] 1963; Jarrige 2002. 57 Xo Xuan Tinh 1998. 58 Electrum is the term used to denote gold that contains naturally high or inten-

tionally added silver content of over 20 percent. In some parts of the world thisalloy may have been frequently achieved from the use of high silver-containinggold deposits. In Southeast Asia this composition may have been intentionallyproduced by the deliberate addition of silver to the gold to achieve a desiredcolor.

59 At least one of the Kosa heads is made from a single sheet of electrum and hasbeen deemed to be of modern manufacture.

60 Noen U-Loke is located in the Mun Valley, northeastern Thailand. The beadsare dated to the third to fourth centuries CE.

61 The man had been buried with three bronze belts, seventy-five bronze bangleson each arm, numerous bronze finger and toe rings, and glass bead necklacesand anklets. An associated burial is that of a woman wearing a necklace of agateand hollow square-shaped gold beads, together with bronze bangles and bronzeand silver finger and toe rings. See Higham 2001, 2002; and Higham andThosarat 1998:153–55.

62 See Reinecke’s contribution to this volume. Reinecke has also reported that thesurface of some of the low-grade gold alloys were enriched by the use of deple-tion gilding, but I have not yet seen these objects or the analyses. It is quite possible that finished objects were treated with acidic salts to enrich the goldcontent of the surface. However, because some surface enrichment will occurnaturally during burial, even under a microscope it is not always possible todistinguish between natural surface enrichment and intentional treatments.

63 First-millennium Chinese reports mention a group in Nanchao, upper Burma,known as the Gold Teeth people (Hudson 2003).

64 The pain incurred by the drilling must have been considerable, and it has beensuggested that the earthenware containers found at the site may have been usedfor distilling alcohol, used as a crude form of anesthetic (ibid.).

65 Higham 2001:58. 66 This island could be the Neak Pean in the middle of the northern Baray. 67 Natural history, XXIII, 64–65, 100.


68 Amalgam gilding is not referred to in Indian sacred texts until the tenth century.Bunker’s chronology suggests that amalgam gilding was introduced from Chinainto Vietnam sometime in the seventh or eighth century. From there it reachedthe Khmer kingdom in the tenth century and areas in northeastern Thailandthat were under Khmer influence in the eleventh century, but it was notpracticed by the Thai until the eighteenth century (Bunker 2008).

69 Selwyn 2000. 70 Reinecke (personal communication) mentions that in the earring from Prohear

27, the gold spheres have fused together. 71 Swan and Scott 1990. 72 Ogden 2004. 73 Neither Zhou Daguan’s account, the Khmer temple inscriptions, nor the jewelry

itself tells us about the identity of the gold craftsmen. Inscriptions at Indravar-men’s ninth-century temple of Prea Ko describe offerings of gold and silver, andthere are references to ironsmiths, molders of statues, sewers of leaves, basketmakers, perfume grinders, spinners, and weavers, but there is no specific mention of a guild of goldsmiths. An inscription dated to 927, from the reign ofJayavarman V, refers to a corporation of goldsmiths (Majumdar 1953:319), butthere is no indication of whether the temples employed them or whether thegold was traded as finished objects. See Jan Wisseman Christie’s contribution tothis volume for a discussion of the Borobudur reliefs and evidence of the crafts-men’s status.

74 Bennett 2009.

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ancient gold and modern fakes in southeast asia

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