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 SMP Silver Salon Forums
 Continental / International Silver
 Tibetan skull cup
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| Author | Topic: Tibetan skull cup |
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FWG Posts: 845 |
posted 07-04-2007 01:40 PM
  
I decided to start this in a separate thread, so that those following Paul's skulls in jewelry thread wouldn't have to look at it if they found it offensive. This is clearly not jewelry, but it was one of the best pieces I ever owned. A 'kapala' is a cup made of the top of a human skull, used in Tibetan Buddhist ritual. This one was carefully lined with sheet silver, so closely that you could follow the internal features of the skull in the metal. It then had a number of individual silver skull plaques applied around the rim. The stand and lid were copper, heavily chased and repousseed. I ended up selling it during a time of unemployment; it also was a difficult thing to have around the house, particularly problematic for visitors with religious proscriptions against being around the remains of the dead. One sometimes sees these now done with monkey bones, or just non-bone materials. There also reportedly were many made in China in the twentieth century, for the tourist trade. This one, I am confident, was nineteenth century Tibetan/Nepali work. In the Himalayas they also make musical horns out of femurs, with silver mounts; these also are being made in non-human bone as curiosities. The use of human bone is intended to ritually perform the mortality of the body. In iconography, some of the deities consume blood and flesh from cups like this. The bones are recovered from the Himalayan practice of "sky burial", where bodies are left out on the mountainside to be consumed by animals. IP: Logged |
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