While ancient Javanese bronze and ironwork have long elicited interest, there is a lesser-known yet equally fascinating aspect of the Indonesian island's history: gold artifacts, including jewelry, clothing accessories, statues, coins, and containers. Not only do these objects display exceptional craftsmanship, they also provide a significant source of information on Javanese society, culture, religion, economy, technology, and art from the 1st century BCE to 1500. This revised and expanded edition of the 1990 publication Old Javanese Gold celebrates Valerie and Hunter Thompson's 2007 gift of Javanese gold objects to the Yale University Art Gallery and the subsequent founding of the Department of Indo-Pacific Art. Along with entirely new photography and a fresh design, the book's essays have been updated to incorporate recent discoveries--including the Wonoboyo hoard, one of the most important gold hoards ever excavated in Southeast Asia. Distributed for the Yale University Art Gallery Exhibition Schedule: Yale University Art Gallery (03/25/11-08/14/11)

Includes 350 items of stunning jewellery of Java gold from private collections Gold Rings are universally considered symbol of wealth, social status and power An embarrassment of riches for all jewellery enthusiasts! Java is outstanding for having produced copious works of art in the form of ring. The most unique ring types and finger rings of stunning variety and workmanship. Rings were significant symbols of wealth, social status and power As body ornamentation finger and earrings were widely distributed and most numerous among gold jewellery in ancient Indonesia from the 7th to the 15th centuries when Java was home to a series of spectacular Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms renowned for their temple sculpture and architecture. Traditionally great lovers of gold, the Javanese were also patrons of virtuoso goldsmiths and other artisans who produced a seemingly endless array of gold jewellery especially during the 13th and 14th century, a period that can be described as a Golden Age. The book includes more than 350 items of jewellery from private collections This pioneering overview on rings brings together a corpus of material that is both representative as valuable antiquities and of fine quality. The rings provide a small and wondrous glimpse of a long-gone era that lives on through them.

Gold Jewellery of the Indonesian Archipelago features more than 500 stunning, never-before published examples of tribal, ethnic, ancient and courtly body ornaments from Indonesia's outer islands - Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi, the Lesser Sunda Islands and Maluku. Written by Anne Richter, author of Arts and Crafts of Indonesia and Jewelry of Southeast Asia, and Bruce Carpenter, acknowledged expert with more than 20 years of experience in the field of Indonesian art, history and culture, and more than 16 books to his name, this volume provides a compelling introduction to the little-known visual power and beauty of Indonesian jewellery. Illustrated with archival artwork and maps as well as photos of carefully selected rare ornamental adornments, this book also traces the historical origins of Indonesia's remarkably diverse culture and peoples.

There exist numerous free-standing figurative sculptures produced in Java between the eighth and fifteenth centuries whose dress display detailed textile patterns. This surviving body of sculpture, carved in stone and cast in metal, varying in both size and condition, remains in archaeological sites and museums in Indonesia and worldwide. The equatorial climate of Java has precluded any textiles from this period surviving. Therefore this book argues the textiles represented on these sculptures offer a unique insight into the patterned splendour of the textiles in circulation during this period. This volume contributes to our knowledge of the textiles in circulation at that time by including the first comprehensive record of this body of sculpture, together with the textile patterns classified into a typology of styles within each chapter.