Product Description

Antique Timor Bracelet 4

Material: Silver
Style: West  or Central Timor, Indonesia
Size: Height 5 cm, Width 6 cm, Depth 0.5 cm
Order Number: MHSATB4

Timor is best known for its silver bracelets and other jewelry. The Timorese have been using metal for a least 2,000 years but silver arrived late and rapidly replaced gold. Funnily enough silver is not native to Timor. The Europeans brought a large number of silver coins, starting with Spanish pieces of eight in the 16th century. Silver Dutch and Portuguese coins were melted down and made into jewelry.

When this bracelet is shaken it makes a sound.

There is a similar one in the Collection of the Barbier-Mueller Museum of Geneva shown in Power and Gold, Jewelry from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, Prestel-Verlag, 1985, page 209, where it is described as a silver bell anklet worn by men in ritual dances, called nitbano in Atoni.

There is also a similar one in Gold Jewellery from Indonesia, Continuity and Evolution, Bruce Carpenter, Editions Didier Millet 2011, page 260, where it is described as a bracelet with seven bells, Tetum, West Timor, and that this bracelet was not worn on the wrist but held in the hand by dancers and used as a musical instrument by the Tetum, who live in the Belu region.

19th century or early 20th century.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).