Product Description

Antique Burmese Book Wrapper, Ribbons and Marker

Material: Cotton, wood
Style: Burma
Size:  Wrapper: Length 49 cm, Width 40 cm;  Ribbons: 1: Length 67 cm, Width 4 cm, 2: Length 74 cm, Width 5 cm; Marker: Length 35.5 cm, Width 4 cm
Order Number: MHSTABBW1

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.

For easy reference the title and folio numbers of the manuscript was incised on a knife-shaped, tapering, wooden marker called a ga-byi-tan, which was inserted between the bindings of the sasigyo.

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).