 So I'm Christian Blutzenitz, I'm the senior lecturer in Tibetan and Buddhist arts, so I'm probably the one in this room who knows least about Southeast Asia. But yeah, it's an interesting topic I think that is relevant far beyond the region anyway. So I'm learning a lot. We had a very interesting session in the morning with a good discussion, and we'll hope to continue that now with the first presentation by Dr Leslie Pullen, who is an independent researcher and did here PhD head so as in finished in 2017 I was surprised that it's a long ago, which is now published as a monograph pattern patterned splendor, published in April 2021. And yeah, obviously, she has organized to initiate this workshop, for which we are very grateful and put a lot of work into it with this even more work than it would usually be with this kind of two year delay. She will present on one of the most interesting objects that she worked on it for a PhD there, and present as an object biography of the pattern of manjushri from Java to Russia. Thank you Christian very much. Okay everybody, you'll now finally get to know about the sculpture that faces us on the wall and on your program. So why this manjushri. Let me just see if this is going to go. Same thing is. Oh, yeah, there we go. Why this manjushri. Well, I first came across the drawing and you're going to see the drawing on the left here a number of times. During my PhD research as Krishna said here it's us, along with the relevant information on him in volume two of Chinese singer sorry and panetran both books as part of jll branches is two volumes on jago and sing sorry. The statue was found at the site of changing jago but was only written up in volume two, which gave me a lot of confusions for a long time because I had to work out how to translate the old Dutch using Google translate I have to say yet again. So what I'm going to do I'm going to present you a brief outline of the first appearance of manjushri in Java, with some examples, not this one but others of both statues in stone and bronze, and I will follow by the resurgence of the parlor art style in with a form of our Pachana, and then I'll chart the journey of the statue in the early 1800s from East Java to 1945 in Russia and his eventual return to storage in Russia in 2016. Chandisewu, the body set for manjushri is known as the knowledge being manjushri in his name means gentle glory in Sanskrit. His earliest appearance is in the form of Kumara or Royal Prince at the eighth century Mahayana Buddhist Chandisewu, known as the manju Grisha or House of Manjushri. The count of this body set for travel to Java, resulting in the construction of one or more temples dedicated to the deity. And it's been suggested that perhaps the cylinder rulers saw him as a powerful deity to protect their role status and their people. An old Malay inscription, which is at the top there, very little example dated 792, found in the southwest corner of the Chandisewu Yard. It announced the construction and the enlargement of a Grand Prasada or monument. Every graphic and architectural messages suggests that manjushri was a prominent body set for, revered by the eighth century, eighth century cylinder rulers. And in Mexico, all of you know of has indicated that the context in which manjushri was installed in Indonesia had significant religious and political associations. So these two statues from Chandee Plaza on the right in the Rikes Museum in Amsterdam, which I'm sure William will talk more about a one of a pair, and below the manjushri remains a Chandee Plaza in a cellar on the south side. At the end of the date in central Java manjushri appears as Kumara, as we see here, depicted with triangular projections or wings behind his head, which I've circled. And they're evident on either side of the backslap. The statues all appear adorned with a channel Vera or the cross chains, and the pressure parameter sutra on the wood parlor or blue lotus on the upper left side of the body. The statue of Manjushri within the Buddhist pantheon is known by as many as 41 saddeners dedicated to him, where he's generally acknowledged as the first body set for to appear in Buddhist literature. From the extant stone statues and the small metal icons it is packed significant to note the importance of the central Java news ruler gave to Manjushri, as there appear to be numerous examples in most of these manifestations. The importance of the three hair curls characterizes Manjushri, if we see in the middle one, the middle Peter at the top, along with his distinctive attribute to the water lily. In the purest form Manjushri peers holding the sword placed on the Lillot parlor which is as I circled in the top there, as we see in the image in the center. The famous Kumara from the British Museum in the bottom central appears with a triangle of protections behind his head, unique to the central Java news images and this is important to remember when you look at the, the later example. Mexico has written a lot more of this but we have no time to discuss it in this lecture. The museum I connected him both dressed in a distinctive Javanese style. On the left here the renowned silver Kamara Buddha at the National Museum is seated in Lali at as an asano with the right hand open in for our demudra. A palm tattooed with the image of the vizpadra, a symbol of two cross veterans. And this again is the only sculptor that I found in all my research that has a vizpadra carved on the hand. Notable resurgence of. Sorry, got to the next one. I will introduce now the era Pachana example of Manjushri. On the left we see a sample from the late parlor period. And this stone statue from Malta remains in the Dakar Museum. The central figure, accompanied by four dinners, instead of the four companions as we see on the right which is the hermitage era Pachana. Manjushri dates from the late 13th century and shows an apparent similarity in form and iconography to the Malta era Pachana which is dated to the late 12th century. This notable resurgence of Manjushri era Pachana and Chandi Jago highlights the autonomy and innovation of Java, at least 100 years after such a Buddhist cult subsided in East India. And this also has suggested that the statues and shrines of this size and quality were almost certainly sponsored directly by the most politically influential members of society, the kings or relatives. The hermitage era Pachana's face appears in, in deep meditation and depicts an assured realist realism of both human features and perhaps divine imperfection, compared to the Indian version on the left. The four depictions of Manjushri, the era Pachana figure, this is him now seated on the lotus throne in princely ornaments and adored with a kind carved in a unique textile pattern. An aspect that was not noted by any other scholars and this was really the central focus of my PhD and my book. His attributes are the sort of knowledge as he holds a loft loft in his right hand and has a damaged palm leaf manuscript in the left in his chest. His chest is broad and Isabelle appears sucked in, which might suggest he is in Yogyapragnayana. This feature is clearly apparent in many central Java news bronze figures but it's not apparent in the equivalent Indian statues. This aspect may reflect an earlier postcode to Lake parlor period of art styles. So on the left, this is the famous drawing or what has been the drawing that's played me for the last 15, 10 years, sorry. And this drawing was by Jth big made in the first decade of the 19th century. Raffles commissioned the drawing between 1807 and 1815. And I'll talk about more about this a little bit later. In the photograph was a picture produced in Baikumar Swami in 1916. It's very important in this paper that you note the dates because there's a real jumping around so you have to keep your head around the dates that I mentioned. So he referenced the photos provenance at the Museum for Vulcan content Berlin, and where it was on public view and again more on that a little later. And then the only other drawing we have is this very dodgy, very poor drawing that appears was collected by raffles in the field during his tenure as governor. So there's no similarity to the actual manjushri. So the manjushri Arapachana statue originated from Chandy Jago complex which is just outside Malang in East Java where Echo is seated right now. King Krochaligara who was the last singer sorry King during the East Java period built Jago in 1286 in memory of his father, and Krochaligara died in 1292. So this was the really apart from Chinese singer sorry it was never finished this was his, the biggest monument. However, the Jago Chandy is not precisely where Manjushri originated, as it's likely that he would have had his own pavilion. Stanford raffles in the early 19th century, and let's think surely in the 21st century both suggested that Manjushri must have had a separate shrine or platform to himself. The statue he was created in a separate Chandy in a different style is reflected in the relief carvings we see on the top here that appear on the lower terraces, and the statue of Moka Pasha that remains in the site, and the four statues of his attendance which are in the National Museum in Indonesia, who stylistic compared to the Manjushri is really quite different. So before Buddhism to retreat in Northeast India around the 12th to 13th centuries, the Buddhist monks moved with their text to settle and study in different regions of Nepal, Tibet, Burma Cambodia and to Java. Now inscriptions have always played a critical data source and can be utilized along stylistic interpretation. Manjushri should be dated about 1268 at the time of the Shraddha ceremony for Chandy Jago. However, the instruction dates to 1265 sucker and it reads, quote, the Supreme King of Arya lineage erected this statue of Manjushri according to the rules in the year five six to one. Oh, it's going all by itself. Magic these things right don't touch it. This is the Dharma, i.e. the law and true feet in the Buddha sense in the Buddha temple. The inscription states it was Prince Siddhiti of Armin who built in the city of the Buddha temple, i.e. Jago, an amazingly beautiful temple to guide his parents and King from this sub lunar existence to the joys of nirvana. So this text would indicate that there was a separate temple built for the Manjushri statue in the Jago complex, where he is dedicated or shall we say consecrated as a statue of Bhairava, but appears here in the form of Manjushri. And I've been told that maybe these earliest translation of the inscriptions may not be correct. There's definitely more work to be done on this statue, which is something life back to normal I can now do. Obviously it doesn't like me. I want to draw your attention to some facts from the early years of the 19th century. There was an economic Kenzi who we've heard of a few times now who worked with Governor Raffles between 1811 and 16. He donated his first collection of archaeological information manuscripts and drawings to the library of his employee the East India Company. However, we should also be remembered that this vast amount of archaeological observations relied heavily on the work of Nicholas Engelhardt during his period as governor of the north coast of Java. The references or photos of the Manjushri are rare. As we see the big drawing, again in the center was published only 100 years later in 1909 branduses two volumes. The photo of Manjushri was then again published in Olga Deshbandes Hermitage exhibition catalog in 2016, followed by my recent book Patterns Blender in 2021, and now there is in 2022 is the headline for this symposium. However, in 2003, Kenny wrote worshipping shiver and Buddha, she describes Manjushri as a plaster cast, and that he disappeared from Berlin but believed to be in St. Petersburg but then full stop had no idea what happened after that. So now I'll start the story of what happened to this statue. So to Nicholas Engelhardt, who you know who he is now with a governor general from 01 to 08 of the north coast of Java. He traveled to Chandi Jago and remove the Manjushri. Then in 83 he removed six more statues from Singasari and place them in his garden for his pleasure as it were between years, 1801 and 08 Engelhardt then under raffles commissioned the drawing. This is really the key crux to this statue is everything came from this drawing. The drawing was made to the scale of two thirds the size of the statue. And according to Rufa writing in branders in the 1909 singer sorry book that the drawing was made on paper thin Chinese paper rather like tissue paper, roughly on all for about 1808. And as there was no paper like this made in in Holland he had to have done the drawing in the Netherlands in the behavior before the sculpture left. Unfortunately, big strong cause never appeared in raffles history of Java where it should have been, but it's only published 100 years later in branders book as we see on the top right. In 1823 the sculpture was taken to the table from Samarang, along with many others and then shipped to the Netherlands in 1827. By 1828 Manjushri with two others were taken to Zooladen to his sister's garden in Groningen, where they remained in the garden as ornaments, I guess, too heavy to go inside. So, obviously doesn't like me this one. Upon the death of Engelhard sister, the statue with the mediation from the Japanese magazine, along with her as sold the Manjushri to auctioneers great brol bizarre of Duburn sons in the hey in the 1850s. We see here in the photo that the decoration on the building on the honor of cream well and Prince Hedrick in 1901 and the building was the only photograph I find of it 1946 probably doesn't look like that now. The statue was then sold to Conrad Lehmanns, director of the museum for antiquities in Leiden. In 1857 in behavior we're back now in Java. Dr Friedrich became acquainted with the collection of drawings of Java in his antiquities collected by Engelhard, and by began translating the two car we square script instructions on the front and the reverse of the stone as you saw in an earlier slide. He wondered at the time if the inscription was the same as that on the stone raffles presented to Lord Minto, but we've just heard about. In March 1861, Frederick shirt Lehmanns the director of the Berlin Museum for antiquities, the drawings of the statue and the two inscriptions, which Lehmanns then recognized as the statue which was in the garden of the Grand Bazaar, which we saw talked about it earlier. By this time, the drawing, the drawing not the statue was enlightened numbered 123. In July 1861, the statue was then sold to the Museum of Hong Kong in Berlin, numbered IC 1065. Then in 1864 they finally put it on display in room 27. And I've been told this by the German Museum in the middle of Bay seven. And that's it. No more information, no photographs available. Lehmanns obtained the drawing number 123 from Leiden, which he showed to Friedrich, who then published in 1864 quote to inscriptions on a picture of Manjushri now in the new museum in Berlin. And it went into the German Oriental Society, like I could find nothing, but I need my German colleagues to help me with that one. According to the Rufa article in Brandy's volume two, the Berlin Museum was very remiss in adequately documenting the drawing in the inventory and describing the museum's complete mismanagement. A bit harsh, I thought. As a result in 1909 when the brandy's book was published there was very little evidence regarding the drawing I could find almost nothing on it 100 years later. As we go on to the next stage of Manjushri's life, he actually lives on today in the Indus room in the Norden Palace in the Hague, there is a copy of his statue. Between 1911, when Brandy's books on Chandi Jaigu and Singasari were finished and published, the Indus room was developed as a gift for Queen Willem. The rooms, Willemina sorry, the rooms ornament represent the Indus and its subjects best features. The place within the chamber was some replicas of Hindu Buddhist sculptures carved in stone, including Prachaparamita, and in bronze such as Nariti, originally from Prambanan. Queen Willemina wanted the Indian Hall to become known widely as possible. So photographs were taken and they paid in the Eigenhardt magazine and the Bintang India in India. AC Vanes, who was the architect of the Indus room, stated that the Manjushri statue, which was in Berlin at the time was of the highest quality and appropriate for the room. So what to do. Initially the plan was to copy for large statues for the Indu Hall to be carved in wood, copied from the original stone. The Javanese carved, if you see the picture at the top here named B. R. Eco, who was originally a cutter of wayang figures and you all know they are about this size was one of the few Javanese who has some experience with figurative sculpture in wood, although not in such a large format. So eco had barely started on the wooden statues when the wood split and tall. So he suggested that this two statues were to be made a stone and the other two statues to be cast in bronze. So volcanic stone was chosen for the Manjushri called Trachyandasite, as it apparently had excellent grain and was light in color. So that's a close up of him on his platform. So photographs were taken of the pasta cars were made and sent to Batavia and cross when eco then set to work to create the replica. So the statue is then shipped back to Adorn Anishin in this room where he is placed on a high wooden platform under a stone canopy on a stone base sorry between a canopy of Carla and Makara. It is unclear from the photographs I see whether eco managed to reconstruct the complex textile patterns accurately as we see in the detail of the drawing below. So let's go to the movement of Manjushri in this slide with some of the three flat tiles known as flakton built by the Nazis used to shoot down the Allied airplanes during World War Two. Manjushri along with many hundreds of other objects were packed up and moved in 1941 for security reasons to Berlin's flakton zoo, a flakta built near the zoo and used as a safe and secure go down as a bunker for art objects. The actual flakton zoo, this one is just an example of what the bunker might have looked like. When the Soviets stepped into Berlin in 1945 they discovered the giant flak towers filled with collections of Berlin's museums and galleries, and the Soviets emptied the towers within weeks. Units of the Red Army Trophy Commission or brigade are collected on some two million art objects, many of which were destroyed or stolen by Soviet soldiers. They were put on their way to Moscow and put on trucks to head east shortly after World War Two, after which any information about these statues appears to be unknown. Manjushri and Harry Harry ordinary acquired by the State Hermitage Museum Leningrad are now considered Russian possessions after the resolution of 1995 by the state doer. In 2002, Berlin published a book of all their lost sculptures, the documentation developed but burn three as we see in the middle here that's the page of it and the front cover. But both statues we see pairs on page 93 number 1065 refer to as the lost art relocated from Berlin. The evidence of the manjushri was written about in 2008 by Lucing Schoeler, who wrote a Javanese statue in the Trophy Museum, where she describes the manjushri in great detail includes all the past book references but state its origin was unknown. And then again in 2012 Mojam Hutsch-Dink wrote excerpt in the past, and she follows the lives of many antiquities but states also has no idea where this statue exists. In 2016 when Manjushri went on display in a special exhibition sacred gift of a deity for three months only with several other sculptures from Java, however, most of the statues were from Thailand. This was the first time in possibly 70 years that these sculptures have been seen. So to conclude Manjushri now languishes in storage probably in the basement or some off of offsite storage of the hermitage with little no chance of being returned to Berlin or ever returning to Java. So to best of my knowledge at no point has Indonesia ever called for the restitution of this manjushri. Thank you. And we have about a few minutes for questions. If there are any. Thanks Leslie. Really interesting biography of an object of a sacred object. I wonder if you could go back to the slide in Indian room. Sorry, there was just a question. What's up the life of a sacred object. This one or the other one. This one. There was one more. Go back. There's only two slides on this. Go forward. There was a close up. Yes, click again. There you go. One more. There. That picture there on the lower left. Is that in the room. The curator gave me the photographs. They sent me these photographs. Okay, so the small little figure there on the right of that picture. That's the relief that's part of the relief is it. The actual manjushri was not made exactly the same as the manjushri. If you look at the drawing these figures aren't quite correct. So this is the underside version. Yes. So there's a little figure. Okay, I'm just curious because in my journeys around Myanmar temples, small wood images are often placed next to powerful large ones to be kind of energized by the large powerful when I was just curious to know whether in the context of this room, whether, you know, there had been any kind of ritual, some sort of ritual significance, given to this, this, this image or, you know, any kind of in everything that I've been given and read about when he was put up here that there wasn't any at all. But who knows maybe there was I haven't been given a but the manjushri has four copies of him all the way around it. The original image has that if you look at the sculpture upon the wall there are four. I'm going to go up on that because I find that extremely interesting that there are five months which is actually on this steal it. And has anybody written about that or suggested the pro why. No, because it's so different to the Indian ones. Of course, they're not the same at all. Okay. Yeah, it's interesting because it reminds me of the. And I think the inscription has to be looked at and maybe compared with the manjushri namazagiti, because that's a likely source for the repetition. Because the inscription doesn't appear to have any relevance to the manjushri's around it and I've been told I mean we need to look at the inscription. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a namazagiti relationship. It's a text that kind of elevates manjushri in a superior position, encompassing all the five. Right. And the composition indicates that you have that each of them stands for one Buddha family. So, so then there's this related question about every time a replica is made with not just a replica. It's a recreation again in the eyes of that that artist and just like that stone that we saw this morning the sangaran stone. In a way the replica used in a way like a cema stone for ritual use. You know that's the same sort of thing going on. I mean it would have been lovely to have known whether there was ritual here but as far as I've been told that there was no ritual given at this time. I don't know, William, whether you know anything more about it. Nick please. Thank you. Thanks so much that was really fascinating. I hope I didn't miss anything but I just wanted to check. There's a major and longest established cast plaster cast making workshop in Berlin, which was formed I think even in the 18th century where it goes back a long way. Do you do you know if there was any discussion about simply making a plaster cast of the object when it was in. I want to talk to me as far as I know from everything I've read know the plaster cast with the in Leiden and then Chikata of course this one sits there in the hallway. But I don't think so unlike the pressure parameter in the store where the zillions of them they're all lined up there's so many of them. So no, as far as I know, no. That's what makes it so special because there aren't lots of other images of it around, I think. Any other questions please. Yeah. About the role of layman's in transferring the statue to Berlin because in your PowerPoint you say that he was the director of Berlin, but he was the director of Leiden. And there is a story and maybe you know more and more about that that layman's didn't do enough to secure this statue for Leiden, because it was gone to Berlin before he knew it actually you have anything on that. I'm hoping all of you are going to tell me more. I found it very difficult. There was that timelines that's why I said keep your head around the dates. There seemed to be a very tight timeline and there were a lot of names and I use the work of, of all you Dutch and German scholars to get my information from this. So I've not been able to go into the archives and I know my name. Well, I need to come back to Berlin. But you know I restricted for the last two years to do anything much so. There's more to do. So, sorry, I think out of time. Okay, thanks very much. If it's very short. I just wanted to say that this is really a crucial sensitive issue for the Berlin Museum. So, I think it would be very helpful to use the archive sources. And also, I still remember when Chancellor Merkel was in St. Petersburg, Leningrad. They were also talking about these looted objects from our museum from the Ethnological Museum. So I think this is a sensitive issue, a political issue. So I have a comment here with regard to the night by Marina Stoyer. 1690s there might have been a confusion with. I need to get back to her on that. I can't really see it now. There's still one in Berlin than a pasta cost. Can you make it smaller again. I only, I only see the window reflection. The museum was founded only in 1873 the Berlin Museum of the 1960s was another institution. Yeah, so so there's a smaller issue here as well. There's a plastic art workshop in Berlin still owns a copy of the manjushri. Okay, I didn't know that. Clodin all together there are five manjushri and image from the car. Lots to know. Thank you very much. This speaker is my Lynn to a bonnet. She is assistant director of the etnologue. This is a museum museum for a theater artist in Berlin. And her PhD focused on urban planning and shop house architecture in Penang, Malaysia, and her main field research or fields of interest urban conservation settlement history archaeology and material culture of Southeast Asia. We'll talk to us about after lifes of Hindu Buddhist gods from Java, sevens to 16th century knowledge engagements. Okay, changing my title, as you can see, I not only will talk about Java but also my field research on Sumatra. So my focus the starting thesis is that these are the regions, I will show you East Java and also from Sumatra is that our colleges, Reiniger assumes that today we have access to less than 5% of all uncovered prehistoric gold objects from Southeast Asia. This is a biased. Why does it view point on the scanty amount retrieved from controlled archaeological investigations in contrast to potentially large data, entailed from and provenance research looted sites for last artifacts. The original information given by stratified context allow the dating and gives essential is insights, but also the material represented in private acquisitions and collection in museum are very important and form part of the knowledge production so therefore my focus is to fold. I present new provenance research on the material from the Ethnological Museum in Berlin, presenting for collectors from the late 19th century and early 20th century. And the second focus is the field research I have done and observing current digging out of archaeological finds on East Java and the moose river in Sumatra. So the materiality of gold objects is especially deemed for re appropriation so that the entanglement between materiality. And attributed. Why doesn't it work value because the physical and tactile. So this is, for instance, a piece which diver gave me or picture of the last diving day so again also the material is congested congested, and as host Leibniz said 20% of the gold finds disappeared by divers on the excavation side. So the materiality, what I wanted to show you is especially important, because most of the gold provenance is unprovenance. As we can see here are publications from gold collections. And you have to have in mind that the physical and tactile properties properties is that gold is never thrown away and therefore it is always it always has been recycled melted and reshaped until today the authentication of gold by scientific methods. So as you can see here, compare the pieces. They are the same. The acro metric acro metric. No, no, no back please. Okay, are. Okay, as you can see here. These objects are the same but published in different ways. So the acro metric analysis I've published on that so just a short remark on this. You can know the chemical content, the composition, but you can never know the dating without art historical stylistic analysis and connoisseurship. So that's why it gives you this big question on the authenticity or you find these over restored sport. It is C 14 dated, but in the publication you give this broad dating range between the seventh and the 1516 century what doesn't help at all. We can date it precisely and it is published in a private. We are by a private collection so you see this material is difficult to be accessed in the case of the question of authentication here another example that something is dated also from a private collection due to the script. With this one, and we have the huge collection in the museums, and I have listed the Hindu Buddhist gold from Indonesia in museums, and most of them remain on a quiet post 1970s. The big question is what is the message of these objects in the museum. I show some collections which we know from Europe treasure like accumulation, the national pride of maybe Kalimantan gold maybe Japanese gold in Singapore in 2019. The question what is the message what do you want to talk about the afterlife. So there is this scholarly bias about the gold some who are talking about who are not talking and reporting on illicitly excavated or traded activities in the scholarly discussions and others who do so, and who wants to document the material as fully as possible in order to balance historic information, which would not exist otherwise so for instance the German archaeological Institute takes a restrictive opinion that unprovidence material can't be shown in their publications. And, of course, this also increases unprovidence material increases our knowledge, but it also increases the monetary value of the material itself, and the credibility is doubted, as you have mentioned. Providence research demands, and this is why I show you this image because after five years investigations, I found out that the Ethnological Museum hosts and has in the Buddhist gold in their collections. So the problem is really the the provenance research, which demands excellent infrastructural resources, plentiful stuff, staying power for maintenance and updating the registration methods. So I was facing a lot of difficulties also to study and document the material. As you can imagine, and the Berlin Museum in this section has never had an inventory of their objects so the full number of the objects in the South Southeast Asian collection is rather obscure and maybe 20 more than 20,000 maybe 50,000 objects and 50% or even less is digitized you can imagine that I was really facing a lot of difficulties with the documentation and the archive word as work as we have also seen before. So that's why coming to this collector. He offered in 8071 72 items, mainly antiquities from the as he said Buddha and Hindu time, and the director out of Boston emphatically endorsed the acquisition of these antiquities quoted and relics of old Java. And going with your research is that this India centered view was supported by Sanskrit oriented philologist philologist officials and others who fuel the idea of a spiritual greater India and moral geography in the knowledge production. So, that's why these rings were also accepted by the as donation in 8081 he donated these varieties from Java to the museum intended to serve scientific interests and complete the museum collection among them these as he calls them Buddha rings with inscriptions inscriptions. But it's the three design as you can see here on the left hand side the three letters. And he says they were dug up from an old well. So the museum director is critical about the fact that antiquities derived from uncontrolled excavation or looting sites. And probably hence feature chance finds. So they really lack and sufficient locational information, and only provide these circumstantial historic information but at least this information we get. And the detox man the collector writes suggests a dating to the eighth century due to Arabic script. Actually, we would expect Sanskrit but okay he says Arabic, and then going further on, presenting these are. The three, the two ones which are probably due to their style, all ones, and the third one also sort of taking up the three design might be of recent times, or even a fake, because already in 1882 doubts were raised that a fake bronze statues were part of deducts from the bronze donation to Albert from Saxon so the Drift Museum. And also this might be an intentional fake, or at least newly found object of his time. So, another two collectors are here, and the source criticism on the source box first reveal that on the right hand side, this ring was not is not originating from Java and it's also not a gold. It can be from anywhere in Southeast Asia from any time also john midget has stated this supported this. So it's plated. And this ring is very special translated to my heart or the great so one of the very few signal rings seal rings so in negative. And it is from the collector AT Martin, who, and this is also special, the sources tell us that, and this is totally ignored in the inventory books, that it is a ring from a Sultan in Lombok. So we don't know why and when it was transferred. Was it due to the Lombok. Yeah. War there that after 1894 it was sort of transferred when was it transferred from Java to Lombok. We really don't know, but it is also due to the reading in the archive that we know more about the provenance at least a little bit more information we get the collector who I, yeah, I wrote about already is Conrad Ernst privilege who was staying in Malang in East Java he was a feverish collector. In 1903, he probably had more than 1000 objects and 140 objects were given to the Berlin Museum. And again, 10 years later, he also gave donations to the museum. So, he's very keen in in addressing the acquisition circumstances. And so we also know that he bought obtained artifacts for more booty from soldiers installed by the Dutch shortly after the invasion of the guy or region. And he also got objects. As you can see here the gold objects. But he also had many other sculptures. So the museum's intention to obtain these objects were first institutional competition against the Dutch museums. So, they had an advisor who had also given a provision to sort of give his expertise so kind of dubious figure. And he went to the Dutch museums and said how run down these Dutch museums are you can imagine his rhetorics. And also they were they fear that will open up a museum by himself or give it to other museums he wasn't touched with other museums. The second reason for the Berlin Museum to get these also the sculptures was the push of the archaeological interest in those days. Third, that the museum knew that exporting antiquities from Java was illegal since 1840. And the privates also said don't please don't mention my name never because it's really illegal prohibited to collect it and also to export it to other countries. So the restriction was known by the museum and it could be evaded by acquiring this private collection when it was already based in Germany. So this was only possible. And I will show you some of my research on his rings that we find out more goldfish techniques about his rings that we can also have I cannot graphic references of this wonderful earplug here in London. This is now my second part that I also want to show you the local debates and for me, the turning point was the auction in 2005, when a statue of gold and silver were auctioned off and the talk and the discussion was if the state should claim them back. Whether they are real or can be sold. So, also other debates about looting gold in the snowboard or your museum and others are in the press. So, therefore, I went to the areas where looting was performed, for instance in Lamongan and Podronigora in East Java. And I wanted to say that this was only made possible due to networks I had with private collectors in Jakarta, who gave me the names of the dealers accompanied me to the sites otherwise. Other looters really face terrifying and really difficult to visit these sites. So this 61 year old digger was extensively looting the area between 1960s and 2010. He hunted for every saleable artifacts. And I went to the sites to date them and these were rave sites and also washed out riverbeds or religious sites as well. So, other treasure hunting is performed in to since 2011 illicit treasure hunting started at the side of the Soviet Jaya Kingdom. So, the, especially divers of the island of Camaro. They, they really understand they call themselves the children of the river and allegedly called their traditionally driving claim that they are. This is their, they are the rightful hires off the side and justify their right on the river's treasure, because they are the Malay constitute a common identity. So what they prove is really a technological knowledge on the tides on the on the diving sites, and also they have refurbished their fishing boats. And also looking for gold so they use mercury, washing out the gold, and they are looking for sellable objects have their diving equipment up nowhere breathing types going down until 30 meters for 30 minutes one hour. So, really, the divers put at a high risk using their eye compressures and stick to a host, a very normal mask. So this is the area there the gold jewelry from Palembang really gives us totally new insights on the gold find so that not everything is from Java but also their very early facts styles motives are found in this area. So, you can see that the prices. Yeah, is four times going up from the diving side there. This Buddha for instance is sold immediately to Thailand out of the country, probably via Singapore or Hong Kong these So send us are now prioritizing highly priced and small size antiquities that are both easier to ship and easier to loot when what makes gold items predestined for this market segment. And another way I was also sort of analyzing the interactions, just to give you some very short insights what I did about this rich market there and on site yeah my time is going out and also what they show when they want to sell these items. This is actually at the end what I will show you that there was a lot of critique about this show seen in the Mannheim Museum, and I was and the set in the background of my discussion about the looting elicit trade claims of restitution and collectors narratives. It is really crucial that this museum refuses to take responsibility to raise awareness of contested cultural property issues and authenticity research of antique gold, because what you can read here. translated from German is that they took the gold works just as art in its own in their eyes, the absence of claims of return raised against the lenders foundation and publications served on the collection are and enough arguments for the exhibit's authenticity. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot. That brings in another component that of, I think, further reason trade into the discussion. Any questions. You did a wonderful job in getting hold of the looters. What was that was that. Yeah, was that easy. I can't imagine that was easy. Easy because I had the context of influential collectors, but without them, I think I wouldn't, I wouldn't dare actually, but it is. Yeah, you can go there and get some context, but it's also, it might be dangerous that they don't really let you in and they are competing groups. In the morning in in Palembang, they are coming to the site and who's faster, who got better context than they it's just sold and gotten. Please. Yes, to go on on that point because I think it's very interesting what you did that work with with the looters and the people of the boat to the people of the river the music. There's a certain point that they feel like people of the river. And they feel that they, they are the rightful owners of to be and I find it a very interesting point because I think that's what we often find in also in the institution debates that Europeans are very much inclined to look at European law, European legal regulations, where the concept of ownership is typically based on 18th century enlightenment literature. But in many other parts of the world, there are different sorts of other ownerships. And who are we to say I don't say that you said but who are we to say that these people of the river are wrong. They don't give the people from there the locals and their voices also this this man that the old man he's he's highly appreciated in the community so when I went out with them. Also the farmers provided him with with things they they find in their in their fields. And he has a very good knowledge. I mean he obtained it by by scrap by by. Learning by doing, and he, he knows the sites so we as our colleges we could also use his knowledge on sites which are probably not discovered or not yet known by the ecological department. I should have shown the ecological department in trouble under the objects, which I wanted to know the background and the sites and they didn't even know. So I think, I mean, there's also a local knowledge of the people that they say it brings back luck, it gets. Yeah, it's bad to, to obtain something, and then not to give it back so there's also a local sort of heritage awareness. And this is important, but there are also these outsiders who sell it off and not to take care of these local knowledge. So there's these sort of local informations and I think we should be more sensitive to their voices. Yeah, and I think it's always the issue. The local trade is not it's legal anyway. So if they get it out of the river and sell it that's fine. But once it's international it gets illegal isn't it in a way. There are many new museums as well. They, they say, yeah, but we never said it was fake. We, it's, it's, it's the intermediary market that makes it fake because they sell it for something old. But they say we, you know, we just did that already for a long time and we just do the same thing. And suddenly it's fake because it's recently made. They don't understand that. Yeah, and then there's also the narrative of the, the, those that the collectors will say oh we are saving the material and like, yeah, others from from the Ethnological Museum and the archives they say, yeah, we are saving the Borobudo I had for instance because the site is so dilapidated. So we save it that it is kept. And so it's, it's another rhetorics that, again, it's the dilemma they are part of this evaluation of this heritage goods, but on the other hand, it's the commodity as you said, at the beginning. One last question please. Just following up also since you, thank you for a great presentation and since you also take such a nuanced stance on these local perspectives and all the arguments made isn't I felt a bit uncomfortable that in your presentation, you use very easily the word looters for that group, whereas when we talk about when you're collecting histories, it's very often about taking and then later on it said that it's so yeah it's just a suggestion. I also because I felt also comfortable that I got to see the picture of a looter. Yeah. Yeah, so but that's, yeah, apart from that's great. You are very right because this was the early stage of my paper and then afterwards I thought, what term should I take so so I said maybe digging out or whatever then it's it's kind of more neutral. But I also, yes, I go with you that it's a critical point. Okay, thanks I think we can end with this critical point, because I think the terminology that we use in identifying different people involved in these transactions is is something crucial of course as well. Yeah. So thanks a lot will stop that here. So it's my pleasure to introduce, Professor Brigitte house or show blame. Who is Professor Meritus at the Institute for cultural and social anthropology, Georg August University Göttingen. Yeah, many of your recent publications focus on the ritual and political organization of space on one hand and on material culture cultural heritage and cultural politics on the other. And she will present on transformations and relocations from edicts to gods to antiquities glimpses into the biography of Balinese copper plate inscriptions. Thank you very much. And I also want to thank the organizers of this symposium that they have the energy to wait three years until in person. I wrote copper plates inscriptions, though. I'm not a linguist I have actually not much understanding of the inscriptions as such, but I will deal with them in a different context. So I will deal with the Sembiran inscriptions, which consists of 20 inscribed copper plates. They are about 30 centimeters long and 11 centimeters wide. Today, 10 of them are kept in the village of July and 10 in its sibling village Sembiran, both located in Berlin district of Bali. They are considered a sacred sacred hell rooms by the local people, and they are looked after by priests and senior male leaders of the Village Association. They are the focus of riches held in the most sacred part of the temples. They are richly based based and anointed and venerated by the villagers. It was leaf ring the Dutch controller of Bali between 1874 and 1878, who discovered 20 copper plates in Sembiran in the 1870s. It took leaf ring a whole year to convince the villagers to lend him the copper plates in order to produce copies by email robbings by using Chinese paper. A procedure which apparently was quite difficult, since some of the plates were bent. The leaf ring reported that the priest, the monk of Gede of Sembiran's village temple, was in charge of these hell rooms. The priest referred to them as Pritima, as movable material sites embodying deities. Nobody in the village was able to read the inscriptions. Sacred things were and still are considered as inalienable possessions, and even the high priest did not dare to keep them in his house or in the village. Instead, the copper plates were kept outside in a densely forested ravine. They were wrapped in a white cloth and hidden in a crevice of a rock. Once a year on occasion of the major festival of the village temple, they were ritually taken out and escorted by beerers with ceremonial lances to the temple where they were venerated. The Pritima remained in the temple during the festival and the members of the village association presented offerings to them. When the festival ended at midnight, as leaf ringer noted, they were escorted back to the hidden site outside of the village. Thus, for the inhabitants of Sembiran, these things have the status of defied persons i de petare and are endowed with a supernatural agency. This applies to Tula as well. The Dutch scholar Jan-Laurens-Andres Brandes transcribed the inscriptions and published them in Latin characters in 1890. It was Rulof Horis who attempted the first translation. The archaeologist Iwain Artike and the linguist Tucciati Berata analysed and re-translated the inscriptions in the 1990s. These translations are published in the book Burial Texts and Riches, 2008. The copper plate processes are written in old Japanese and old Balinese language with many Sanskrit words. They contain edicts that were issued by different kings between Saka 844 and Saka 1103. The sites of these rulers have not been determined so far, though they most likely lived up near the Batua Mountains. Thus, the original status of these copper plates was that they were once legal documents that were regularly publicly read on certain occasions. Brandes was surprised when he realised that the royal edicts were addressed not to Sembiran, where he had found them, but to Tula, although they were all kept in Sembiran at that time. However, when Horis and Pugl visited the villages in 1965, they noted that the copper plates had been divided between Tula and Sembiran, each village holding ten plates. No one seems to remember when or how this division took place. It must have occurred sometime between 1880 and 1960, probably around 1900. As the inscriptions reveal, Tula was a fortified harbour town, Kuta, an important and prosperous post of entry from merchants with goods from India, China and beyond. The foreign merchants had, as the inscriptions state, their own district settlement nearby, and the inhabitants of Tula were responsible for their safety. The kings obviously had an economic interest in Tula as a major site of import and export. They therefore tried to keep control over Tula as the edict's document. A village of the same name still exists and archaeological excavations document that this site had been appalled with transpiriting relations already more than 2000 years ago. All traditions confirm the whole site of the village, and Tula's significance as a major port with an international marketplace during the 10th and 11th century. This stemmed from the fact that North Bali was touched by the trading route to the spice islands. Moreover, the angling conditions were favourable, and an abundant fresh water well was close to the shore. According to the seasonally shifting trading winds, ships from or to India and China anchored at Tula, where the merchants and the ship crews were also awaiting for favourable trading winds. Due to its wealth and location near the shore, the village was repeatedly attacked by the intruders called Boonin from the sea. Donald and many of the inhabitants were killed. The edicts are reactions to complaints of the villagers to the king. The villagers had suffered the attack and were nevertheless obliged to pay taxes. The kings alleviated the burden and confirmed the village's rights and duties. They began to gradually lose its importance as a harbour town probably in the 13th century. When the trading route changed to the south of the island, the former kingdoms in the mountains disintegrated and Tula became a village of peasants and fishermen. The edicts then lost their validity. The knowledge of writing and reading got lost. It was then when the sacralisation of the former legal documents started. It is the status of sacred heirlooms the copper blades reached and still continues to the present. Even when Tula was no longer an important part, the village was still repeatedly raided in the centuries immediately preceding Dutch colonial rule. The survivors always fled to a place up in the mountains called Oepet and the name already appears in the inscriptions. The last time when the inhabitants of Tula who had fled to Oepet to return to the coastal area was probably in the early 19th century. At the time when already the influence from outside such as the Dutch was increasing. Having in Oepet, the villagers had given the share of the copper plates for safe custody to their sibling village Sembiran. Only sometime after Tula had resettled in the coastal site did the two villages divide the plates again. In the second half of the 20th century, the villagers became aware that the sacred heirlooms were objects of desire for outsiders. The inalienability of the Pratime existed only from the villagers' perspective. For outsiders, art collectors and their suppliers, plus us, they were commodities, the price of which was even higher if they were antique and originated from an authentic cultural context. In August 2002, Iwajan Trang, the village head of Tula at that time, called us in Germany. He informed us that the Prasasti had disappeared, leaving the villagers in confusion and anger. What followed was a desperate search for the thief and the stolen heirlooms by traditional, that means spiritual means, and those of the modern state, that is police. On the one hand, Wajan and the priests turned to the police and asked for track dogs, aware of the smell of the perpetrator could no longer be identified by the dogs. On the other hand, Wajan consulted a number of paranormal, male as well as female Hindu Balinese as well as Muslim. None of their predictions became true. Two months later, Wajan heard that the police of Kintamani sub-district had captured a thief. He had been accused of breaking into several temples. Wajan and his team managed to get the name of a 64-year-old man from one of Tula's neighboring villages, who was remanded in Kastudin in Bangri. They were allowed to meet and question him. They finally admitted to having broken into the temple and also to having taken off with a small wooden box, assuming that some precious antiquities were in it. I have to add that, of course, he not freely admitted that he had broken in, so he was heavily beaten up by the police in the station several times. Not far from Tula, the prisoner explained he opened the box and realized that there were 10 sheets of iron in it, each covered with Balinese characters. He also admitted that these goods were no longer in Bali but had been transported to the house of a man in an East Japanese village. The group decided to immediately leave for Java in company of four policemen from Buleling Bali. Together with four local Japanese policemen from Bonde Wuzod village, they arrived at the house of the man the thief had named at one o'clock in the night. The local police had warned the team of heightened tensions in the area. When they approached the house, the policemen had their weapons ready for firing. They were threatened by a crowd of villagers, men and women, all armed with sickles. When the police rushed into the building, they could not find the prasasti, but fortunately met the man whom the thief had named. However, this man did not know the whereabouts of the stolen goods. Bayon, still afraid that the valuables were somewhere close by, could therefore be handed over to a middleman for sale, urged one of the policemen from Chakula Bali to call the police in Bali and ask them to bring the thief to the phone, so that his accomplice could talk to him and inquire where he had hidden them. This finally happened and the thief revealed that he had hidden the antiquities in a cow barn. When the policemen and Bayon entered the barn, Bayon saw a bundle wrapped in white cloth and covered with plastic above the head of a calf. He collapsed and began sobbing. He realized that he was encountering Ida Bedare, though located in an inappropriate place. Next morning, the group returned to Sinha Raja. You see, I think it's Bayon carrying the bundle with copper plates on his shoulder. It's the way the sacred things are carried by men. So they returned to Bali. At the sea temple of Banjar Patu, they were met by village deputies and together they formed a procession and could continue the way home by foot. When they arrived, the most senior ritual leader took over the sacred goods while other ritual elders had brought offerings to welcome the deities. In the afternoon, the Ida Bedare were escorted directly to the shrine. There, the senior ritual leaders, the policemen from Teja Kula and hundreds of villagers had already assembled. The other official, Jero Panjarika, asked one of the policemen about how the stolen goods had been recovered. While this uniformed policeman was recounting the whole story, he fell into trance and had to be revived with sanctified water. This trance was taken as an indication that the gods acknowledged the reunification with the material manifestation of Ida Bedare and were present in the temple again. Only when the policemen had recovered consciousness, did Jero Panjarika distribute sanctified water to the community. The transformation of antiquities back into Pratima was completed. Some weeks and even months later, the ritual leaders of Kula had to bring the Pratima to the police offices. Since the police wanted to confront the thieves accomplice from Java and also later the thief with the corpus delicti. When the delegation from Kula arrived in Bangli, they were allowed to see the thief, but not more. In fact, the villagers had asked the policemen to let them punish him by their own way, and that means lynching. However, the police refused this request. It was sentenced for burglary and was transferred to jail in Shinga Raja. In 2004, thanks to Vajantran, who still was village head at that time, I was able to visit this man in jail and to talk to him and learn about his life. He had been Cleon Adat, the official in charge of riches in one of Kula's neighbouring villages for several years. He was a notorious gambler who had to sell everything, even the land he had inherited in order to pay his gambling debts. Moreover, he lost everything, also his family and his faith in Hindu Balinese religion. He eventually married a Japanese woman and converted to Islam. As a former expert in Adat matters, he knew about the valuables kept in neighbouring village temples. The man in the middle, that's clear, I think. And right is Vajantran. He broke into many temples and stole sculptures, golden ornaments, carved statues, creases and whatever he could get. During the interview, the thief never used the term Pratima or Prasasti, but spoke of antique goods. To my knowledge, none of the villages was ever able to retrieve its sacred goods. The major reason for this is that people had never closely examined these sacred Ilepetare. Therefore, they were not able to give a detailed description of them. In Sambiram, a whole bundle of creases was stolen. When the priests reported this theft to the police, they were asked to give a description of them. However, even the high priest had never dared to open the bundle. They could not even say how many creases had been in it. In September 2010, I called Vajantran and inquired about the whereabouts of the thief. He told me that he had died about two years ago. Shortly after he had been released from prison, he once more broke into a temple. He was caught by the police and shot dead during the skirmish. I saw my conclusion. A copper plate inscriptions have undergone several transformations and translocations. From Royal Edicts, issued and produced at a meeting on a market day near the King's Palace, transported to Jullach. They became, in a second step, sacred heirlooms and deified beings. And finally, in the mainstream of the international art market or antiquity market, there became potential commodities, especially on the international black art market with its whitewashing procedures. However, it was through the colonial encounter that Pratima have also become objects of knowledge to scholars and subsequently also objects of knowledge, academic knowledge to local people. They are unique historical documents while at the same time for the people of Sembiran and Jullach, they are sacred heirlooms. When we talk about restitution, we also assume the notion of ownership and that would be the topic of our whole conference if we need it. The example shows that knowledge related to the object and the material thing are two entities and there may be more than just one knowledge, namely an object as source of academic knowledge and the knowledge about the sacred place of a deity. We have to note that the robbings leafring made contain the source of academic knowledge. The originals are no longer needed for deciphering the text and distributing the knowledge. And the distribution of academic knowledge is very important today, open access. By contrast, sacred heirlooms and the knowledge about them are bound to their materiality, the object and its spirituality. As sacred beings, they need an appropriate site where they could or should be kept. They are not circulated but enclaved to use one of apartheidized term and this is taking out of the flow of commodities. So, thank you. Thanks a lot for that fascinating story. Often object transform many ways and retraced stunningly enough. Questions, please. Please. It's a fascinating story. I was hesitating if I still should ask the question I'm going to ask because it seemed that you answered it in the conclusion. That was intrigued that in the way you build up the PowerPoint, you start with the sacred knowledge, and then there is secular knowledge, and then the whole story comes as the first one. And you see that all forms of knowledge come together at a place. I was wondering, it's not in the way you told it, but in the way of the PowerPoint, if you are not making a strict separation between what is academic knowledge, if there is something good to be disseminated and sacred knowledge, whereas I would say there is exchange going on and the one empowers or legitimizes the other further even further so that, yeah. That's more, I think, comments. But maybe, what do you think you mean about the distribution of academic knowledge. I mean, that's, I think that your example actually shows that the separation between what we think is academic knowledge, or, and local knowledge as something traditional and spiritual and sacred that your story actually shows that it is models at both sides. They are two sides of the material objects, and they are on the same level of course. So I wouldn't say that local knowledge is below the academic, are you aiming at that. No, I was aiming at that they are influencing each other. Of course. Ashley, please. Wait, wait for the microphone please. Thank you very much for a fascinating talk and I just wanted to follow up on your, your exchanges now. I also ended on so that the separation or now relation between those two types of knowledge but also on materiality or embodiment I think maybe didn't use that word but materiality on the side of the, of the local knowledges. I wonder if there's a way of thinking that question of the relation between the two that would also go through the question of materiality and so far as. When my with with your particular objects, you might say, Okay, the academic knowledge is derived from the writing. And so that is, as you said open access accessible etc. If we consider it to be a party ma, right. Then we, the embodiment, or the materiality is perhaps inseparable from the academic knowledge as well. So I'm just wondering about that division. How you think about that. I mean, it's inseparable for the local people, of course. But we should think of the importance history today has for local people. So this is a very poor of both religious are very poor villages. But the knowledge now to have the confirmation that they have, in fact, a very long history has contributed to their identity and to their pride. And of course, this kind of knowledge is embodied in the materiality of the copper plates as well. When I show slides of the characters the Balinese characters. It doesn't matter where the material objects are. I wanted to emphasize that that academic research makes a kind of abstraction from the object as such, while for local people. It's, it cannot be separated. It's fascinating that it's fed back and essentially reinforced the importance of the object. Yes, of course. And you can imagine what would have happened if the police had recovered these objects. They would have followed the state, the track of the state, and probably finally ended up in a museum. Please. Thank you for that. Very, very interesting talk. I just, I'm just so shocked by the contrast between your presentation and the one by my Lynn, where, and it's both both very good, really good field field research, following, following the police in this case. The, the, the shocking aspect is the difference between something, you know, presumably if those copper plates have been found in the moosey river, you know, and had come onto the international market through that, that way, then you have it would be treated in exactly the same way as something stolen from, from a village in Bali, where it was treated as a sacred object. And, and that, that kind of highlights just how problematic it is for when museums acquire something from the international market with no idea of where it's coming from, because it could be either of those scenarios. Of course, I have shown one picture with a crown on it. It's a golden crown. It was originally a gift set, given by the king as a kind of document legitimation. And this is already the third copy. And it's not a copy in a Western sense, but it's, it's a crown made according to the, to the standard of the time so I first thought, might, might this be the original shape of it, of course it's not. So these crowns, twice stolen, must have turned up in the international market. Nobody knows where they come from. And this also is a dimension. I want to do you want to repatriate objects without provenance and one of the major whitewashing techniques of this black market and partly the legal market as well is auto has been to blur where they come from. Yeah, thanks a lot. I think we have to end here very, very interesting session that leaves us with many questions to think about. We have half an hour deep break and so we reconvene yet for thanks to all the speakers.