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old ivory,silver bracelet from india detail

nice patina and wearing, silver / ivory bracelet from india with elefant heads
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  • Nice! You rarely see such nice examples... Love the silver elephant heads even though I always struggle to identify them as elephants. For some reason I always see a duck in front of my inner eye ;-)

  • Love the silver fittings on this one and the henna used to dye the ivory. Lovely old piece, but controversial even now.

  • Thank you Betty and Patti, yes old ivory looks fantastic. The wearing and henna make it more interesting
  • I believe the ends of the bracelet are adorned with Makara heads,makara being a mythical beast with features of various animals - elephant, fish, lion, peacock...

  • I like the Makara theory Preethi - it means that it's maybe not just my lack of imagination when I fail to see elephants? 

  • thank you Preethi, interesting informations, it is like hanumann then

    i had as neighboor an indian restaurant, theyhad everytime i went there a foto or sculpture human body with diffrenet animals heads, when i was asking the owner, he was always saying hanumann. i asked him howmany hanumanns you have , he answered : every creature can be hanumann even you ( he ment me ) i smiled to him and said, if it is the case, then i can come every day eat for free, who knows , maybe i m the hanumann ??

    as a smart business man, he answered me: we expect that hanumann helps us and gives us, so, that day you will come for sure with a treasure to us. so i had to pay my food and give a bigger tip

  • Great story Rabah!

  • Rabah, I love your stories! That Indian restaurant manager is one crafty businessman :)

    Stylized depictions of makaras show a stubby trunk, very much like the one on this bracelet. This wiki page has info and photos: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makara_(Hindu_mythology)

  • Lovely to see aged ivory like this!

  • thank you frankie, yes beautiful. before i posted this bracelet, i consulted a friend who is good in old natural materials and knows a lot about ivory.i larned a lot from him about the red color in the african and indian ones ( Henna as Patti ) wrote, the darker color in the china ones, the tip about making it wett sometimes and many others

    Preethi

    i must admit that since i m living in europe, i had and still have many friends from india. there is always interesing things to discover with and in them

    can you believe that one of my indian friends ( kashmiri) eats olives every day, when i realise it in the begginig, i asked him if it is some thing special he finds in or it is a tradition or anything als ?

    his answer: we dont have olives in india

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