Gold, Silver & Brass, Jewellery of the Batak in Sumatra, Indonesia

, 5 Continents, 2012 Hardcover with dust jacket, 192 pages, 215 ills. 27,1 x 30,9 cm. Text in English. *new. ISBN 9788874396269.

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The nearly 300 precious works shown here are artifacts of a once-flourishing jewelry tradition The first book to examine the rich jewelry traditions of the Batak people in Indonesia is a gorgeous tribute to a vanishing way of life. Batak jewelry is characterized by a wide variety of materials and forms and has many functions: Jewels can be status symbols, badges of rank, attributes of membership of a certain age group, amulets and talismans, or simply ornaments. Men, women, small children, and even babies were once adorned with gold, silver, brass, bronze, or the gold-and-copper alloy known as suasa.