Batak Hand Carved Wooden Scale Box.  Gold.  Halangan North Sumatra

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Click the photo above for a larger version and more pictures

 

 

Batak tribes are well known for their carved medicine containers like this (see C-7734, for another).  This one is less artistic and more functional, but using the traditional motifs of the Singa (protective creature) and ASO (human-like heads).

 

Functional?  This particular container was used (lightly) to weigh gold dust and was carved in Halangan about 20 miles northwest of the Marabe Gold Mines (one of the largest mines in Indonesia and the world).

 

That’s cool, right?  That’s precisely why I acquired it!  Stands not included but a great story is!