Product Description

Antique Burmese Book Wrapper and Book 1

Material: Cotton, palm leaf
Style: Burma
Size:  Wrapper: Length 61 cm, Width 42 cm;  Book: Length 51 cm, Depth 3.5 cm
Order Number: MHSTABBWB1

Highly valued palm-leaf manuscripts and sacred unbound lacquer pages called kamawasa were wrapped in a cloth cover called sapa-lwe to protect them from insects and dust. They were made strips of cotton and thread interwoven between a warp of bamboo sticks. They were interlaced for create lively geometric patterns.

Thin, long ribbons called sasigyo bound the pages of sacred manuscripts. They were tightly woven on a card loom and were patterned with monastic and royal symbols, such as posts hung with streamers or surmounted by hin-tha birds, stands for bells, and the donor’s name, title and pious aspirations.

Early 20th century.

There is a similar set in Burmese Crafts Past and Present, Sylvia Fraser-Lu, Oxford University Press, 1994, pages 287-288.

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