Funerary Shroud (Bidak or Tutup Jenazah), ILE2012.30.69

Title Funerary Shroud (Bidak or Tutup Jenazah)
Culture Lampung or Komering
Geography Sumatra, Indonesia
Date 17th–early 18th century
Medium Silk and gold thread; weft-faced plain weave and weft ikat
Dimensions 90 3/16 × 59 1/16 in. (229 × 150 cm)
Credit Line Promised gift of Thomas Jaffe, B.A. 1971
Inv. No. ILE2012.30.69
View in Collection

This large cloth, probably used as a funerary shroud, has alternating bands of plain silk with fine gold thread weaving and intricate weft . The scroll patterns of the weft ikat bands are similar to very finely worked weft ikat textiles found in Lampung that have been dated to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This textile has been radiocarbon dated to between the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.1 —RB

  1. For the carbon-14 dating results, see the Appendix. ↩︎